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COLLEGE HISTORIES
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Presented to the
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
LIBRARY
by the
ONTARIO LEGISLATIVE
LIBRARY
1980
COLLEGE
HISTORIES
CAMBRIDGE
KING'S COLLEGE
From a photograph by] [J. Palmer Clarke, Cambridge
CHAPEL: WEST END
Btttibttffij! of
COLLEGE HISTORIES
KING'S COLLEGE
BY
REV. A. AUSTEN LEIGH, M.A.
PROVOST OF THE COLLEGE
LONDON
F. E. ROBINSON AND CO.
80 GREAT RUSSELL STREET, BLOOMSBURY
1899
A
Printed by BALLANTVNE, HANSON <&* Co.
At the Ballantyne Press
PREFACE
THE materials for a history of King's College consist, in
the first place, of the MS. records preserved in the
College. Of these, the Account Books go back to the
earliest times, and are nearly complete. The Protocollum
Books cover the period since 1 500 and contain a record
of the admission of all Scholars and Fellows, cases of disci-
pline, diversions of the Fellows to exceptional courses of
study, and decisions of the Visitor. The Congregation
Books, which contain the votes passed by the Governing
Body and the annual elections of officers, date from 1722.
There is also, in the College Muniment Room, a collection
of letters, of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
written by Visitors, Provosts, and Fellows, which throw
light on some episodes of College history. We possess
also isolated accounts of various important occurrences in
the College ; but these are unofficial, and the actual date
of their composition is sometimes uncertain. Moreover,
there are two catalogues of Provosts, Fellows, and Scholars.
The one preserved in the College was drawn up by Antony
Allen, admitted a Scholar of King's in 1704. He made
use of two earlier lists one the work of Thomas Hatcher,
Fellow, who died in 1584, and had carried his catalogue
down to 1555 ; the other, a continuation to 1620, by John
Scott, Coroner of the College. Allen was a Master in
Chancery and enjoyed the friendship and patronage of
vi PREFACE
Arthur Onslow, Speaker of the House of Commons. His
catalogue is completed to the year 1751. Allen's portrait
hangs in the Provost's Lodge and is that of a portly gentle-
man, who looks well satisfied with himself and his fortunes.
The other catalogue, preserved in the British Museum, is
by William Cole. This is much fuller than Allen's ; but
though Cole lived till 1782, his record of the members of
the College closes in 1731. Cole was a friend of Horace
Walpole, with whom he travelled in France, and had begun
his antiquarian researches as a boy at Eton. He was at
first an Undergraduate of Clare Hall, and then became a
Fellow Commoner at King's ; he held several Livings in
succession, but only resided at one of them, viz., Bletchley,
and finally retired to Milton. He is buried under the
steeple of St. Clement's Church, in Cambridge, for the
erection of which he provided the funds, and where his
name is preserved in the motto " Deum Cole."
Of printed books the most important to the historian of
King's College is the great work of Willis and Clark on the
Architectural History of the University of Cambridge.
Indeed, so far as the history of the College buildings is
concerned, there is nothing left to be done but to make
the best use of this mine of information, and to express
admiration of the three volumes. Next to this, perhaps,
should be placed Mr. Mullinger's history of the University,
at present completed to the accession of Charles I. For
the period which it covers it is invaluable. A third
source of information is the new " National Dictionary
of Biography ; " of this I have made great use, although it
has not yet dealt with such prominent Kingsmen as
Walsingham, Waller, Whichcote, and the Walpoles. It
is hardly necessary to mention the books which the
historian of every College must use e.g., Cooper's " Annals
of Cambridge," Fuller's " History of the University," and
PREFACE vii
Gunning's " Reminiscences." There are also some valuable
articles in the publications of the Cambridge Antiquarian
Society, especially those by Mr. G. Williams, Mr. Bradshaw,
Mr. J. W. Clark, and Dr. M. R. James. The close con-
nection between King's and Eton makes it natural not
unfrequently to consult Mr. Maxwell Lyte's history of
Eton College, a book to which it is always a pleasure to
return. The works written by former Kingsmen, and
their biographies, are, of course, numerous ; but I must
mention Dr. Moule's " Life of Charles Simeon," and Mr.
Lane Poole's "Life of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe,"
as being equally valuable records of two very different
men, who must have known one another in College as
Don and Undergraduate, and whose portraits now hang
opposite to each other in the College Hall.
But my acknowledgments are due to men as well as to
books. Like every one else who writes about Cambridge,
I have to thank our University Registrary, Mr. J. W. Clark,
for much kind help. In particular he drew my attention
to the younger G. G. Scott's " Essay on Church Archi-
tecture," and also enabled me to use an unpublished
memoir of the Thackeray family. Beside this, he has read
through the earlier chapters of this book, and has made
many valuable suggestions and corrections. If there is
any one whose knowledge of the College can rival that of
Mr. Clark it is Dr. M. R. James, our Senior Dean. He
and my brother, Mr. W. Austen Leigh, Senior Fellow,
have taken the trouble to read through the whole book,
and have spared no pains to make it less incomplete and
less inaccurate than it must otherwise have been. Some
parts, too, have been revised by Mr. C. E. Grant, Senior
Bursar, whose criticisms have been especially useful on
questions connected with the College property. The
oldest living Kingsman, Mr. Tucker, formerly Rector of
viii PREFACE
Dunton-Waylett, has written a lively and graphic account
of Old Court, 1822-1825, from which I have borrowed
largely; and both to him and to Bishop Abraham and
Mr. W. Green I am very grateful for allowing me to make
use of their personal experiences and reminiscences.
Other Kingsmen to whom I owe much are Mr. F, C.
Hodgson, Professor Raleigh, and Mr. Mahaffy. The Vice-
Provost of Eton, Mr. F. Warre Cornish, has furnished me
with some valuable information from the documents con-
tained in the Fellows' Library at Eton. Mr. Lionel Cust,
Director of the National Portrait Gallery, has also sent me
the facsimile of an interesting letter, which will be found
in Appendix E., as it arrived too late for insertion in the
text. To these names I must not omit to add one more
that of our sub- Librarian, Mr. F. L. Clark, who has
repeatedly called my attention to important records which
I should otherwise have overlooked. Indeed, whatever
the particular topic may be, he seldom fails to unearth
some pamphlet or bundle of old letters which bears
directly upon it.
It was my hope to be able to describe the habits and
manners of resident Kingsmen in bygone days : but the
evidence for this is very scanty. If my readers think that
I have told in too great detail the story of more than one
College quarrel, my excuse must be that it is just from the
accounts left us of such exceptional occurrences that we
catch a glimpse of the life led by our predecessors.
Without this a history of the College is in danger of
becoming a mere chronicle of the buildings together with
a string of biographies. Yet even the biographies are
necessary if we are to form any true idea of what the
College has contributed towards national progress, both in
Church and State. There is a special interest attaching
to the history of King's College, because it is the record of
PREFACE ix
an almost unique experiment in education. Nowhere else,
at least at Cambridge, were the scholars drawn wholly from
a single school, and exempted from the ordeal necessary
for obtaining a Degree. These anomalies are now univer-
sally condemned. But, at a time when it was the custom
for Scholarships and Fellowships to be restricted to parti-
cular Schools or Counties, a Society which possessed the
right of recruiting its members from so magnificent a
foundation as that of Eton College had, after all, a toler-
ably wide basis on which to build. It must be remembered,
too, that there was a small but important class of Fellow
Commoners w r ithin the College. The College ceased to
receive them just at the time when George Thackeray
became Provost, and perhaps owing to some order of his ;
but there is no record of it. Probably it was felt that
their presence encouraged idleness or extravagance among
the Scholars ; yet the roll of distinguished Kingsmen
would be much shorter if Fellow Commoners had not been
welcomed for three hundred years. No Kingsman, as it
seems to me, has any reason to be ashamed of the position
which his College held in the University till the Restora-
tion, or even till a later date. The Society, which was
cooped up within Old Court, was a prominent one, at any
rate in Elizabethan and Stuart times. Indeed, one is
tempted to say that, as the buildings were enlarged, the
influence of the College declined. Yet in every century
we can show a fair list of great men ; not perhaps of the
very greatest, whose genius seems to be independent of
their surroundings ; but rather of that class who owe much
to the training of School and College.
If there were shortcomings in the College of former
days, they were probably less due to the closeness of the
tie with Eton than with the want of a closer connection
with the University. I have tried to collect in an Appendix
x PREFACE
the evidence on the origin of the custom by which Fellows
of King's were exempted from the University examination
for a B.A. degree. It is disappointing to arrive at no
definite conclusion. I can only hope that some future
historian of the College may be more successful in finding
fresh evidence, or more skilful in dealing with that which
we now have.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. THE MAKING OF THE COLLEGE .... I
II. THE CHAPEL 17
III. THE NEW LEARNING ... . . 34
IV. BISHOPS AND MARTYRS . ' 43
V, THE SPACIOUS TIMES OF GREAT ELIZABETH . 55
VI. THE LAST DAYS OF ROGER GOAD .... 73
VII. SAMUEL COLLINS . ...... ( . . , . 94
VIII. THE EVE OF THE CIVIL WAR . . . IOQ
IX. DARK DAYS . . ." - . ... . . 122
X. WHICHCOTE AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES . . 134
XI. THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH 147
XII. GIBBS'S BUILDING . . % . . . . . l6o
XIII. WHIGS AND TORIES 178
XIV. SOME DETAILS OF COLLEGE LIFE . . . IQ6
XV. SOME EMINENT KINGSMEN 2o8
XVI. THE AGE OF SIMEON 222
XVII. THE END OF OLD COURT 238
xii CONTENTS
CHAP -
XVIII. THE CLOSE OF THE OLD REGIME . . .258
XIX. REFORM 272
xx. NEW KING'S 282
APPENDICES
A. EXEMPTION FROM DEGREE EXAMINATIONS . . 2Q5
B. THE SENIOR SCHOLAR'S BOOK 298
c - PROVOSTS OF KING'S COLLEGE; VISITORS OF KING'S
COLLEGE ' n 300
D. NOTE TO p. I 75 . . ... . . . 301
-
ILLUSTRATIONS
CHAPEL : WEST END . . . . . . Frontispiece
OLD COURT - . . - X. . . . Facing page 6
HENRY VI.'S DESIGN FOR SOUTHERN QUAD-
;
RANGLE AND WESTERN CLOISTER . / . ,, 17
CHAPEL : INTERIOR (LOOKING EAST) ... 32
OLD PROVOST'S LODGE . 58
GIBBS'S BUILDING . . f ' . . , . . ,, 172
WILKINS'S BUILDING (COLLEGE HALL) . . ,, 252
SCOTT'S BUILDING (FROM BENE'T STREET) ' . 286
BODLEY'S BUILDING (LOOKING SOUTH) . .. 288
?.
CHAPTER I
THE MAKING OF THE COLLEGE
r HENRY VI. was less than nineteen years of age when, in
1 1440,* he began his foundation of a college at Cam-
^ bridge. History is almost silent as to the influence
which led him to take such a step. There was nothing
in his mother's character to account for it, and the
estrangement which followed on her marriage with
Owen Tudor must have put an end to any power
which she possessed over her son. His great-uncle,
Cardinal Beaufort, was rather a statesman than an
ecclesiastic ; and though we may believe that his pre-
ceptor, the Earl of Warwick, earned out the orders of
the Council by teaching the King to "love, worship,
and dread God," had "drawn him to virtue by ways
convenable," and taught him "literature, language,
and other means of cunning," yet Warwick had left the
King to become Regent of France three years before.
* The site of the Old Court was conveyed by Commissioners to
the King on January 22, 1441, and granted to the College by Henry
on February 12. According to the old way of reckoning the year
began on March 25, and these dates would belong to the year 1440.
Moreover, some parts of the site had been acquired by the Commis-
sioners in the preceding autumn. The year 1440 may therefore be
considered as the date of the original foundation. Throughout this
book the years will be reckoned as beginning on January i.
A
2 KING'S COLLEGE
It was, indeed, traditional in Henry's family to be
orthodox and devout. His father had waged war with
Lollards as well as with French, and was meditating a
fresh crusade at the time of his death; but we
naturally look for some one, who may have prompted
the young prince in his educational designs, as Bishop
Fisher afterwards encouraged the Lady Margaret to
found colleges and professorships. And it appears
from a list of Benefactors contained in the earliest
College Register that the members of the Society
recognised such a person in John Langton, Master of
Pembroke and Chancellor of the University. He it
was who was entitled to their gratitude for the services
which he had rendered both in the foundation and in
the endowment of the College : " fundari procuravit et
possessionibus . . . quam plurimis . . . dotari labor-
avit." It is not unlikely that William of Alnwick,
Bishop of Lincoln, also encouraged the young King's
project, for he had acted as Henry's tutor, and he
could not but take a special interest in the school
founded in his own diocese. Nor would that interest
be confined to Eton, when the connexion between the
College at Cambridge and the school on the Thames
was established in 1443. Whoever may have prompted
him, Henry's original aim, as he himself tells us, was
to extirpate heresies, to increase the number of the
clergy, and to provide ministers of religion whose life
and doctrine would give light to his subjects.
The young King had no difficulty in finding the
necessary ways and means. The Alien Priories, the
rents of which were transmitted to the Abbey of Bee
in Normandy or to other Foundations in France, had
THE MAKING OF THE COLLEGE 3
narrowly escaped suppression in the reign of Henry IV.;
and in 1414 the estates of one hundred and twenty-two
such priories were confiscated, those only escaping
which had renounced foreign allegiance and elected
i their own Head. The rents of the confiscated priories
were henceforth paid into the royal exchequer. Before
the year 1440 it had become clear that our rule in
France was at an end, and it was undesirable that
English money should continue to support foreign
Foundations. To a man of Henry's devout character
it might well seem a duty that the funds, which had
been intercepted on patriotic grounds, should be used
for some religious purpose at home.
Henry had already granted to the University of
Cambridge the manors of Ruislip in Middlesex and
Okebourne in Wiltshire, in order that the University
Chaplains might pray daily for his good estate during
life and for his soul after death. These manors were
now made over to his new College, and within a few
years many others were added, about half of which still
remain in the possession of the College and form the
bulk of its landed estates. These are scattered over no
less than eleven counties, chiefly in Southern England ;
and at one time the College owned land as far off as
St. Michael's Mount in Cornwall. Its western border
does not now extend beyond Sampford Courtenay in
Devonshire, a property acquired in Queen Elizabeth's
reign by exchange for Withyham in Sussex, which then
passed into the hands of Lord Buckhurst.
The College, which the King founded in 1440-41, was
to consist of a Rector and twelve Scholars, and to bear
the name of St. Nicholas, on whose day (December 6)
4 KING'S COLLEGE
Henry had been born. The choice of a site was
entrusted to three Commissioners, of whom one was
John Langton, while the Bishop of Lincoln took part
in framing the Statutes of the new Foundation. The
old buildings of Clare Hall at that time abutted on the
west side of Milne Street. The south end of this street
is now known as Queen's Lane, but in the fifteenth
century it was continued northwards till it reached
Michael House, the buildings of which then occupied
the south-west corner of what is now the great court
of Trinity College. Opposite to Clare Hall, and to the
east of Milne Street, but at a distance of about ninety
feet, stood the new University Schools of Theology and
Canon Law. Between these buildings and the street
there was a garden belonging to Trinity Hall, and the
acquisition of this ground furnished ample space for such
a College as the King then contemplated.
On Passion Sunday i.e., the fifth Sunday in Lent
April 2, 1441, Henry laid the first stone of his new
College, and granted the use of materials from the old
Castle at Cambridge. The eastern side of the Quad-
rangle being already occupied by the University Schools,
the College consisted of three wings, of which the
northern was considerably the longest and overlapped
the University Schools. A Chapel of modest dimen-
sions rose outside the Quadrangle on the south, and
stood there for nearly a hundred years. Dr. Caius calls
it a " mean and inconvenient building " ; but it seems
to have been of stone ; it consisted of a chancel, nave,
and ante-chapel ; it had a western door, and east and
west windows, stalls in the choir, a rood-lofb, altars of
St. Mary and St. Nicholas, and both large and small
THE MAKING OF THE COLLEGE 5
organs. It was richly fitted up, and ample provision
was made for the due performances of the church ser-
vices. The Scholars of some earlier Foundations had
attended one or other of the parish churches ; but such
an arrangement would not satisfy Henry, although he
had not yet conceived the plan of the stately edifice
which within a few years was destined to rise still
farther to the south.
A beginning was made by the appointment of William
V Millington as Rector and two Scholars, John Kyrkeby
jand William Hatclyffe. But within three years the
\ King had enlarged his design. Apparently his atten-
/ tion had been drawn to William of Wykeham's two
colleges at Wi??rhfts ter and Oxford. At any rate, now,
in 1443, he takes them for his model, and connects his
Cambridge College with the one already founded at
Eton. The Scholars of the latter, when sufficiently
imbued with the rudiments of grammar, are to be
transferred to the twin College at Cambridge, now
styled the College of St. Mary and St. Nicholas, there
to be more perfectly instructed in the liberal arts and
sciences. In its new form the College is to consist of
a Provost, seventy Fellows or Scholars, together with a
body of Chaplains, Lay Clerks, and Choristers ; and
William Millington exchanges his title of Rector for
that of Provost. At the same time the King nomi-
nates six other " original Fellows of the College." It
was not till two years later that the Society was re-
cruited with students whose connexion with Eton had
been more than nominal ; in 1446 no less than eleven
Scholars were admitted, and so many in the years
following that by 1452, or about the time when the
6 KING'S COLLEGE
Quadrangle was completed, the number of seventy may
have been completed also.
The site, which was ample for the original body,
might well fail to satisfy the new wants, and the King
lost no time in acquiring more land to the south. Yet
the buildings already begun were so arranged as to
accommodate the seventy members. The south and
west wings were occupied by chambers ; on the north
stood the Hall, Butteries, and a Parlour in which the
three Bursars dined apart from the other Fellows.
Above this Parlour was the Audit-room, and to the
west of it the Kitchen with a belfry. The Treasury
was over the gateway in the west wing ; while at the
south-east corner, a passage called " Cow Lane " led
from the Quadrangle to the Chapel. In later years the
first-floor room over this passage became a Combination-
room. Access to the various chambers was given by
octagonal staircases projecting into the court. There
were three floors; the whole of the south wing, to-
gether with the west wing as far as the gateway, was
finished ; but, before the rest was completed, the King
had planned a much larger court on the south side of
the Chapel, and hence this remaining part was finished
off in a temporary manner. Even so it was probably
superior to any previous work in the University,
and the gateway in particular was worthy of the
Foundation.
The ground-floor was chiefly occupied by Scholars,
the Fellows living above ; each room held either two
Fellows or four Scholars ; but the rooms were so con-
structed that small studies were partitioned off from the
dormitories ; and the Statutes especially insist that each
--*
THE MAKING OF THE COLLEGE 7
Scholar should have a separate bed. The earliest
Bursars' Books show that there was a library and a
stable ; and before 1454, by which time everything
seems to have been finished, the College also possessed
a pigeon-house and a garden. The Founder had also
secured to the College the right of bringing water in
underground pipes from a spring in Madingley Parish,
and had bound himself and his successors to furnish the
Society with a yearly supply of Gascony wine. The
latter would, no doubt, have been a boon at the
numerous Feast-days which were kept in obedience to
the Statutes, while the former would have proved a
daily blessing and promoted health as well as sobriety.
While the buildings were in progress, the Society
must have suffered great discomfort ; what its general
condition was, when it was able to occupy a settled
home, may be gathered from the Statutes. But these
Statutes themselves were not the code originally con-
templated. The eminent men, to whom that work had
been entrusted, had withdrawn on the plea of stress of
business ; possibly they disliked the change, by which
King's was now linked to Eton. At any rate, Henry
took the matter into his own hands, and with the help,
as is conjectured, of William Wainflete, an old Wyke-
hamist and Provost of Eton, drew up the elaborate
laws which governed the College for more than 400
years. It is to be noticed that Henry's conception of
education has by this time grown somewhat wider. It
is not merely a College of secular priests which he now
contemplates, but a Society in which provision is also
made, though on a very modest scale, for the study of
law and medicine. Great power was, of course, entrusted
8 KING'S COLLEGE
to the Provost himself, but it was shared with the
Vice-Provost, the three Deans, three Bursars, and six
other senior Fellows. The officers were chosen annually
by this aristocracy of thirteen ; if the majority of them
differed from the Provost, recourse was had to the whole
body of Fellows. In dealing with all legislative business
of importance this process was reversed ; first the Fellows
were summoned ; but, if they were not unanimous, then
the decision rested ,with a majority of the Provost and
thirteen Seniors. It seems to have been taken for
granted that the Deans and Bursars would always be
chosen from among the Seniors ; but the Statute omitted
to state whether, in the absence or illness of a Senior,
his place should be filled up ; and this omission was a
cause of controversy in later times. The Provost alone
had the right of proposing business for discussion.
The election to Fellowships was made by the whole
body of Fellows, with the Provost's consent ; but the
Junior Fellows took no part in the election of Scholars.
The Seniors chose two Fellows to accompany the
Provost in his annual visit to Eton, a journey for which
not more than nine or ten horses were allowed ; and
the election, in which they were helped by the Provost,
Vice-Provost, and Headmaster of Eton, was to be com-
pleted within five days. The electors began by swearing
to be impartial in their judgment, and to resist all
external pressure which might be applied either by
princes or prelates ; a promise which in those days it
was easier to make than to keep. Any boy might be
a candidate who, having been born in England and
being between the ages of fifteen and twenty, had been
educated for two years in Eton College, provided that
THE MAKING OF THE COLLEGE 9
he did not possess an income of five marks and was not
a cripple. Some preference was given to boys born in
parishes belonging to Eton or King's ; and, failing
such, to boys of Buckinghamshire or Cambridgeshire.
Those elected to Scholarships pledged themselves to
reside as members of King's for at least five years.
On reaching Cambridge they were placed under the
care of the Vice-Provost and Deans ; the latter officers
presided at the College disputations, the number and
character of which were carefully defined ; and other
teachers were provided at the?^t of the College, whose
terminal fee did not exceed \QdJ for each Scholar. The
examination at Eton hadvjbested their knowledge of
grammar, and they were now introduced to the mys-
teries of logic and rhetoric, which made up the Trivium
or undergraduate course. A College order of 1483
gives us some further details. There was a " collector
to report to the officers all Scholars and B.A. Fellows
who were absent from disputations. Lecturers came
into Hall at 6 A.M. and taught till 8 A.M. Every day the
last lecture was repeated before a new one was begun.
At the end of each week the elder students shewed up
to the Vice-Provost, or to one of the Deans, a summary
of the week's lectures. Each day the students were bound
to get up in private a chapter of logic or physic, and
at the end of the week to pass an examination in these
chapters. The teaching must have been chiefly oral,
for printed books did not yet exist. Books of any sort
were scarce and precious, and one College servant was
specially occupied in carrying them to and from the
University Schools.
Meals were taken in the College Hall, the Scholars
10 KING'S COLLEGE
sitting at one table in the middle of the room and the
Lay Clerks at another. For the most part they ate in
silence and listened to the reading of Scripture ; when
they did converse, it was in Latin. Dinner ended with
a grace, prayer, and an anthem in honour of the Virgin
sung by the members of all the various tables. Only
occasionally, either on great Feast-days or when there
was a fire in the winter time, were the Scholars allowed
to stay on in Hall after dinner or supper, and to occupy
themselves with singing, and with reading poetry,
chronicles, and other improving literature. The
College not only boarded and lodged its members, it
also clothed them, cut their hair, and shaved them.
Once a year the Bursars furnished a sufficient supply
of cloth, which was perhaps converted into garments
by some of the College servants. Scholars and Fellows
were forbidden to sell or pawn their clothes till they
had worn them for two years ; but after the first
year they might give them away to members of the
Society whose own suits had come to a premature decay.
Even if the Scholars of those days had possessed money,
they would have had little temptation to run up a
tailor's bill, for they were strictly forbidden to adopt
modern fashions in dress, to wear belts ornamented with
gold or silver, or red or green boots. A gown reach-
ing down to the heels was indispensable. It was one
of the duties of the Porter to trim the hair and cut the
beards of all the Society; and neither Fellows nor
Scholars were allowed to indulge in a profusion of hair,
which was then thought to be inconsistent alike with
the academical and the clerical profession.
No encouragement was given to sporting tastes;
THE MAKING OF THE COLLEGE 11
dogs, ferrets, and hawks were forbidden. Even such
innocent exercises as jumping and ball-throwing were
discouraged ; though in this case the objection seems
to have arisen from a fear that damage might be done to
the buildings or glass. If the Scholars went outside
the College, they were not to go alone nor to discard
their academical dress ; and before they could take a
walk into the country, leave of the Provost and Deans
was necessary. Poverty probably kept them at Cam-
bridge ; but they might enj oy a vacation of two months
in the course of the year, so long as not more than
twenty out of the whole number of seventy were absent
at the same time. Even when out of residence they
were bound to dress like " clerks, 1 ' and forbidden to
frequent either taverns or public spectacles.
The life, which is described in these Statutes, seems
to us hard, monotonous, and sombre ; and the election
to a Fellowship after three years of probation made but
little immediate difference. The Fellow was still a
student under strict discipline, though his studies were
more advanced. Even when he became a M.A. the
College did not loose its hold upon him. For three
years he was a Regent, and as such was bound himself to
teach others; after that time the College authorities
decided whether he should be one of the few who
devoted themselves to the study of law, medicine, or
astronomy. But theology was the business of the large
majority; and it was the duty of the Provost and Deans
to see that all M.A.s, with rare exceptions, should within
two or three years take holy orders and become Priests.
Any failure to obey the Provost's injunctions in this
respect was punished with forfeiture of Fellowship.
12 KING'S COLLEGE
For the Provost himself a separate house was pro-
vided, of which some account will be given in a later
chapter. One attendant of good birth and five men
servants were assigned to him, and as many as ten
horses. Provisions both for horses and men, clothing
for servants and master, were found by the College.
His income, which the Statutes fixed at 100, though
only two-thirds of this sum were actually paid, was
large for those days ; on great Feasts he was bound to
dine in Hall ; on other days he might do so if he
pleased, and might also entertain guests there. In
addition to these emoluments and privileges, he was
not debarred from holding other Church preferment,
provided that it did not interfere with his residence at
Cambridge, where, besides his duties of maintaining
discipline and of general supervision, he was bound on
great Festivals to celebrate Mass in the Chapel. One
absence at least in the year was enjoined on him; at
some time before the 1st of October he rode round the
estates in company with a Fellow chosen by the College,
inspecting the live stock and warning the bailiffs and
tenants to send in all moneys due from them, so as to
be ready for the Audit. The circuit was not to extend
beyond forty days, and the number of horses to be used
by the Provost and his companion was specified.
Great anxiety is shown by the Founder that the
numbers of the Society should not be allowed to de-
crease; and frequent diminutions in the amounts for
commons are enjoined by the Statutes rather than that
one of the seventy should be missing. It is the busi-
ness of the Provost to see that the ten Chaplains and
six Lay Clerks should be maintained; and a fine is
THE MAKING OF THE COLLEGE 13
imposed on him of 8s. 6d. a week for each vacancy
among the former and of 4,9. 3d. for each missing Lay
Clerk. The constitution of the Society was to be
protected by a certain veil of mystery, for heavy
penalties are imposed on those who show to strangers
the copy of the Statutes kept in the College Library,
or who allow any part of them to be transcribed. In
such a case the Provost is to forfeit half his income,
while a Fellow loses his Fellowship. As a general rule
the surplus in each year was paid into the common
chest, and could only be applied towards enlarging the
College property or in legal expenses; but a sum of
%QQ was reserved, from which loans might be made to
members of the Society. Degree fees were paid on
behalf of the poorest students, and each Fellow re-
ceived a certain annual sum which varied from four
marks assigned to a Doctor to thirty shillings received
by a B.A. The officers also had regular though modest
stipends.
Henry had exerted himself to obtain exceptional pri-
vileges for both of his Foundations ; and on November 29,
1445, Pope Eugenius IV. issued a Bull in favour of
King's College. A cemetery was allowed, in which
members of the College, and others who wished to have
their graves there, might be buried. All the Sacraments
of the Church might be performed in the Chapel, even
when the town was under an Interdict. The Provost
and Scholars were made independent of all parish rights,
whether pecuniary payments or the obligation to attend
Services. The Founder seems to have thought it incon-
sistent with the dignity of his College that it should be
subject to the ordinary jurisdiction of the Chancellor;
14 KING'S COLLEGE
and the College was exempted, under the Papal Bulls,
from this jurisdiction, as also from the authority of the
Bishop of the diocese, being committed instead to the
charge of the Bishop of Lincoln. That Bishop had
naturally become Visitor of Eton College, for the county
of Buckingham was then within the diocese of Lincoln,
and the two Foundations were too closely united to
admit of their having different Visitors. Provision
was made for frequent visitations either by the Bishop
himself or by his commissaries ; and even this last office
might not be entrusted to the Bishop of Ely. It is
remarkable that, whereas at Eton the Archbishop of
Canterbury shared with the Bishop of Lincoln the
powers of a Visitor, the Bull of Pope Eugenius ex-
empted King's College from the authority of the
Archbishop as well as from that of the Bishop and
Archdeacon of Ely.
The Statutes, described above, received the royal
sanction in 1446, and in the same year William
Millington ceased to be Provost. His retirement was
not voluntary. We know from a letter which he wrote
some years later to Thomas Bekynton, Bishop of Bath
and Wells, that his conscience did not allow him to
accept the new code. There were many things in it
which he disliked, and to two he had an insurmount-
able objection. As he had already sworn to obey the
Chancellor's jurisdiction, he felt that he would be
guilty of perjury if he accepted the exemption from
such jurisdiction, which was conferred by the Statutes,
and still more definitely by the Bulls. Nor could he
reconcile himself to the Statute which restricted the
Scholarships to Etonians, and gave a preference even
THE MAKING OF THE COLLEGE 15
among these to boys born in certain parishes. But he
protests against the injustice of those who had ousted
him, and declares that neither the Bishop of Lincoln
nor the King had approved of his deprivation ; and the
fact that he was one of those appointed to draw
up Statutes for Queens 1 College in 1448 is certainly
evidence that he recovered the royal favour if he ever
forfeited it. It would seem that Millington did not
altogether disapprove of the connexion with Eton. At
any rate, he signed the "Amicabilis Concordia," by
which the Wardens of Winchester and New College
and the Provosts of Eton and King's bound their
Colleges for all time to support each other in all causes,
trials, and difficulties.
The University did not surrender its authority over
the new College without a struggle. In 1453 Scholars
of King's were forbidden to take their degrees till they
had renounced their exemption from University juris-
diction; and in 1454 there were riots, in which the
College was a special object of attack. But Henry was
too strong for his opponents; and the University
finally gave way in 1457 ; except that the College
jurisdiction was limited to cases which had their origin
within the precincts of the College.
To us at the present day it does not seem a matter
of much moment whether a turbulent undergraduate
or dishonest servant was brought before the Chan-
cellor's Court or the Head of his own College ; but the
exemption from University examinations, which seems
to have followed from that of jurisdiction, entailed far
more serious consequences. How and when this last
privilege was secured is uncertain. The College
16 KING'S COLLEGE
Statutes seem to assume that the Scholars will take
part in the disputations, which were then the avenue
to a B. A. degree ; and in the documents by which the
University recognised the freedom of the College in
the matter of jurisdiction, the Chancellor retains the
power of summoning Kingsmen to scholastic acts and
congregations. No records are extant to show whether
Kingsmen did in fact ever "dispute" for the B.A.
degree ; and we must be content to remain uncertain
whether the custom by which members of the College
received their first degree without examination up to
the middle of the nineteenth century was established in
the fifteenth.* At that period the loss was perhaps
not great, for the academical exercises, though they
might sharpen the intellect, were no guarantee for any
cultivation of the mind. In another half-century the
revival of the study of Greek gave an opportunity for
a revolution in University studies. Freed from the
trammels of a barren logic, the Kingsmen might have
devoted themselves to a nobler literature ; and it will
be found that some of them did so. Yet it cannot be
doubted that the exemption was, on the whole, a cause
of idleness, and that it was easier to fall below the
standard of University culture than to maintain in the
isolation of a College a still higher ideal.
* See Appendix A.
CHAPTER II
THE CHAPEL
" They dreamt not of a perishable home
Who thus could build."
As soon as Henry had determined to enlarge his
College at Cambridge and connect it with the one
which he had already founded at Eton, he must have
felt the necessity for a Chapel of more suitable propor-
tions. He had already planned a large church for his
School, and he could not allow his College to be at any
disadvantage in this respect. The document which
goes by the name of his " Will," and is dated March 12,
1448, gives us complete details of his final plan both
for the church and for the southern quadrangle and
western cloister, which he intended to build if his life
and reign had been prolonged. We cannot read the
King's words without feeling how thoroughly he had
put his heart into this work. Every possible pre-
caution is taken for providing an annual supply of
money till such time as both Colleges, at Eton and
Cambridge, should be completed. No appeal could be
more solemn or more pathetic than the concluding
words, in which he charges his executors to fulfil their
task faithfully. Yet, of his great design, the Chapel
18 KING'S COLLEGE
alone was built; and this, with some exceptions, the
most important of which is that the side chapels were
not originally meant to extend east of the Ante-
Chapel, corresponds to the directions of the Will. The
Civil War and the changes in the dynasty delayed the
completion of the fabric for more than half a century,
but the modifications which this delay caused in the
original design are such as are apt to be overlooked
except by the eye of an architect.
Henry had gradually acquired a large area reaching
from High Street (now Trumpington Street) to the
river. The ground was then covered by shops, private
houses, hostels for students, and gardens, and there
were several thoroughfares leading west from High
Street, and across Milne Street, towards the river. By
purchase from private owners or by grants from the
Mayor and Corporation of the town, he became pos-
sessor of nearly all which the College at this day holds
on the east of the Cam, except the space now covered
by Bodley's building and some ground at the south-east
corner. There was one important building, however,
which it was necessary to demolish. This was the
Church of St. John the Baptist, commonly called St.
John Zachary, which stood on the west side of Milne
Street, and probably so close to it that the high altar
of the church was on ground afterwards enclosed
within the western bays of the College Ante-Chapel.
The parish of St. John Zachary was of some import-
ance, including as it did the Colleges of Clare and
Trinity Hall. Henry made arrangements for its being
united with the adjoining parish of St. Edward's; the
church was pulled down, and a new one built opposite
THE CHAPEL 19
Gonville Hall. The necessary area being thus cleared,
the King laid the first stone of the new Chapel on
St. James's Day, July 25, 1446. The King's presence on
this occasion has been doubted, because there exists a
letter written by Henry to Abbot Curteys of Bury,
telling the Abbot to be at Cambridge on Michaelmas
Day, when the Marquis of Suffolk would lay the first
stone, the pestilence then prevailing at Cambridge
preventing the King himself from coming. But the
year of this letter has been wrongly assumed to be
1446, in the course of which year Abbot Curteys died.
It was probably written in 1445. Something must
have happened to postpone the ceremony, for the
College Register distinctly says that the King himself
laid the first stone on July 25, 1446. A few months
before he had granted to the College a quarry in
Thefdale, near Tadcaster, which had already supplied
material for a large part of York Minster. Two or
three years later part of another quarry of Yorkshire
limestone, viz., Huddleston, was allotted to the College ;
this was the stone chiefly used in the lifetime of the
King, and was no doubt conveyed to Cambridge, as
it was to Eton, by water.
Nicholas Close has commonly been considered the
architect of the Chapel. He was a man of Flemish
family, and one of the six original Fellows. He had
for a few years held the cure of the parish of St. John
Zachary, and in 1450 became Bishop of Carlisle.
He certainly received from the King the grant of a
coat-of-arms for his services ; but an equally strong
claim might perhaps be made out on behalf of John
Langton, Master of Pembroke and Chancellor of the
20 KING'S COLLEGE
University, who acted as overseer of the works till
1447, when he became Bishop of St. David's. And
if we accept the view of Mr. G. G. Scott, in his Essay
on English Church Architecture, the man who should
really have the credit of conceiving this great work was
the master-mason, Reginald Ely, appointed by a patent
of Henry VI. " to press masons, carpenters, and other
workers." According to Mr. Scott's view, Close and his
successors did the work which in modern days would
be done, though less efficiently, by a building com-
mittee ; but they were ecclesiastics, not architects. It
is the master mason, not the more dignified " sur-
veyors," to whom the honour of planning the building
should be attributed.
The third overseer or surveyor was Robert Wode-
larke, another of the six original Fellows, who was
made Provost in 1452. He seems to have acted as
overseer till the deposition of the King brought the
work to a standstill ; and finding that there was some
suspicion of his having embezzled part of the funds
allotted to the work, he drew up a statement in which
he tells us the following particulars : When Henry
was taken prisoner at St. Albans, 1455, the Earls of
Salisbury and Warwick promised to supply funds for
the College buildings, and told Wodelarke to collect
stonemasons and workmen. For some time they kept
their word ; and some part at least of the ^PIOOO a
year, promised by Henry from the Duchy of Lancaster,
continued to be paid. But the exigencies of the State
soon absorbed all the revenues of the Duchy; and
Wodelarke found that he had to pay the workmen out
of his own pocket. So far from having made any
THE CHAPEL 21
profit by his surveyorship, he found, on going into the
accounts with Thomas Betts, the College auditor, that
the payments exceeded the receipts by %%8 10s. 4td.
When the great battle of Towton in 1461 gave the
Crown to the young Duke of York, the two Colleges
of his rival could not hope for any favour. And, in
fact, Edward IV. did not spare either Eton or King's.
But the former College seems to have suffered the more
severely, much of its property being confiscated for the
benefit of the Dean and Chapter of Windsor. Some
of the King's College estates suffered the same fate,
and the College is said to have lost land to the annual
value of c1000, " no fewer than forty of the Fellows
and Scholars, besides Conducts, Clerks, and Choristers,"
so runs the story, being " in one day forced to depart
the house for want of maintenance." On the other hand,
Edward is said to have restored to the College 500
marks of annual revenue on condition that they should
acknowledge him for their Founder. Moreover, the
College accounts show that during the twelve years
which follow Edward's accession some attempts were
made to carry on building operations, and apparently
the " Provost's " Chapel in the new church was in use
as early as 1470.
The restoration of Henry VI. in that year was only
momentary, and could be of no benefit to his Colleges ;
but towards the close of Edward's reign there are
signs of greater activity. This may have been due to
the influence of Thomas Rotherham, Archbishop of
York and Lord Chancellor of England. It was natural
that he should take an interest in the College of which
he had been made a Fellow in 1443, and of which he
22 KING'S COLLEGE
had once been Visitor as Bishop of Lincoln. More-
over, he was a true friend to education. Not only had
he founded a College at Rotherham, his own native
place, and enriched it with a large collection of books,
but he had also re-founded Lincoln College at Oxford ;
and at Cambridge he had built [the east front of the
new Schools with a Library above, which he had fur-
nished with many valuable books. The College had
another friend at Court in Walter Field, who was
Chaplain to the King, and who succeeded Wodelarke
as Provost in 1479. He was appointed the next over-
seer of the works, and before Edward's death in 1483
had found the means of spending nearly 1300 on the
Chapel. It was at this time that the oolite from
Weldon in Northamptonshire was first used ; the stone-
work of seven of the side windows at the east end was
completed, and several of the Chantry Chapels were
roofed in, two of them being vaulted with stone. It
seems also that about this time the original design was
seriously modified. Reginald Ely would probably have
taken as his model the Lady Chapel at Ely ; the vault
would have been arched, and the great space which is
now left between the top of the windows and the
spring of the vaulting would have been avoided. But
in 1476 John Woolrich had succeeded to the place of
master mason, and the vaulting shafts which he placed
in the Choir, springing from corbels at the transom
level, shew that he had determined to adopt the new
fashion of fan vaulting, though the vault itself was
built by other hands some thirty years later. He could
not raise the windows, some of which were already
finished, but he could carry up the wall above them
THE CHAPEL 23
to support his comparatively flat vault. It is, at any
rate, certain that, whereas in the two easternmost
chapels on the north side, as well as in other chapels,
the work of which was already far advanced, we find
the earlier and simpler " Kerne " vaulting, this is dis-
carded in the body of the church for the more magni-
ficent style which had already been introduced on a
smaller scale at Gloucester and in Oxford. The evi-
dence, therefore, points to Woolrich as the man who
designed, in the language of Wordsworth^ sonnet,
" that branching roof
Self-poised, and scooped into ten thousand cells,
Where light and shade repose, where music dwells
Lingering and wandering on as loth to die ;
Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof
That they were born for immortality."
Although Rotherham himself was disgraced and sent
to the Tower on the accession of Richard III. in 1483,
yet the new King not only shewed his goodwill to the
College by the gift of the estate of Biggin in Hertford-
shire, but also ordered that the building should go on
with all possible despatch. John Sturgeon is to press
workmen, to provide materials, and to commit to
prison all who should delay him. Between May and
December 1484 about 150 had been spent, nearly all
of which was provided by the King. The east window
had been glazed with white glass, and the father of a
scholar had furnished money for making another win-
dow in the Choir. From an extant letter of the
Provost thanking the unknown donor, Mr. J. W.
Clark has been able to identify the latter. The son's
24 KING'S COLLEGE
christian-name was James, and the only James admitted
to the College before 1526 (for the name seems as yet
hardly to have crossed the Tweed) was James Denton,
afterwards Canon of Windsor. Liberality was heredi-
tary in the Denton family, for the son, besides other
improvements which he made at St. George's at his own
expense, u built the long and stately back-stairs from
the bottom of the hill unto the top, commonly known
by the name of the College Stairs," but more familiar
to our own generation as the " Hundred Steps."
Mr. Scott has no doubt that the windows of that
portion of the Chapel, which was finished by 1485, were
glazed with white glass, and a partition erected across
the Choir, so that it might be used for the church services,
as was commonly done in such cases. It must be re-
membered, however, that the Kingsmen already had a
smaller chapel, which they continued to use on ordinary
occasions, if not on all. At any rate, it is fairly certain
that the five eastern bays of the new building were by
this time finished and covered with a timber roof; and
thus, after nearly forty years, the great church planned
by the Founder was still a fragment, not half com-
pleted.
Now followed a period of more than twenty years of
absolute stagnation. It might have been expected
that a grandson of Queen Katherine would readily
adopt the scheme which was so dear to the heart of
Katherine's son ; but till almost the eve of his death
Henry VII. took no notice of the College, to which
even Richard had shewn himself a generous patron. It
so happened, however, that in 1506 the King, in com-
pany with his mother, paid a visit to Cambridge and
THE CHAPEL 25
attended service in the unfinished Chapel. This seems
to have been the turning-point ; at any rate, in the
summer of 1508, more than a hundred masons or car-
penters were again at work ; and in the following spring,
only three weeks before his death, Henry conveyed a
sum of 5000 to the College, and enj oined his executors
to provide as much more as might be necessary for com-
pleting the church. After this there was no further
interruption in the work, which was of a kind likely to
interest the new King, for Henry VIII. was, at that
time, if we may trust the judgment of Erasmus, an
enlightened and religious prince, and so true a friend to
learning that there seemed to the Dutch scholar to be
the promise of a golden age in England. It proved
indeed to be little better than a "quinquennium
Neronis " ; but the quinquennium was prolonged suffi-
ciently to secure the completion of King's College
Chapel. The vaulting of the Choir and Ante-chapel
was now executed with Weldon stone in 1512 and
the following years ; a u pattern tower " was built at
the north-west corner ; and, as it was approved, a con-
tract was made for three other towers like it. Another
contract provided for vaulting two porches with stone
from Hampole in Yorkshire, as well as sixteen Chantry
Chapels with Weldon stone. Apparently by July 1515
the fabric of the church was finished, and had cost, in
the present value of money, about =160,000.
The design was new in English architecture, but not
absolutely original; for in the Cathedral of Albi, in
Southern France, as Mr. J. W. Clark has pointed out, as
well as in two churches at Toulouse, vast buttresses sup-
porting a great vault are in the same way supported
26 KING'S COLLEGE
themselves by Chantry Chapels. At Albi, though the
stone work is plainer than our own, the vault has the
advantage of an extremely rich painted decoration ; such
as was intended, but never executed, at King's. But
the vaulting itself is of a kind peculiarly English ; and
it reappears in Bath Abbey, in St. George's Chapel at
Windsor, in Henry VII.'s Chapel at Westminster, and
in the ambulatory of the choir of Peterborough Cathe-
dral. It is interesting to notice that one of these
buildings, Bath Abbey, was begun by a Kingsman,
Oliver King, who was Bishop of Bath and Wells from
1495 to 1503, and who had pulled down the old Abbey
Church. It was not only in the vaulting of the College
Chapel that the change of style appeared. The double
niches in the windows, and the profusion of heraldic
badges with which both the exterior and interior of the
Ante-chapel are enriched, if not overloaded, are examples
of the exuberance of detail which marks the last stage
of Perpendicular architecture. This was certainly a
departure from the Will of Henry VI., which directs
that the building should be constructed "in large
fourme, clene and substancial, settyng aparte super-
fluyte of too grete curyous werkes of entaylle and besy
moldyng." But probably the executors of Henry VII.
introduced these Tudor badges as evidence to future
generations that they had faithfully discharged the
trust committed to them.
With the exception of one bay at the east and two
at the west end, the main building is flanked by low
chapels. The Founder's will directs that an altar should
be placed in each of these "closets, 11 and that there
should be a vestry on the north side " departed into
THE CHAPEL 27
two howses beneath and two howses above." No such
Vestry was built ; but some of the Chapels answered the
same purpose, though most of them served as Chantries,
where Masses were sung for the souls of individual Bene-
factors. In two of these on the south side, opening
into the Ante-chapel, and in one farther east on the
north side, there is some painted glass of the fifteenth
century. A vague tradition tells us that part of this
came from Ramsey Abbey. It is at least as likely that
it was taken from the church of St. John Zachary,
which had been demolished to make room for the
Chapel.
When the fabric was finished, no time was lost in
glazing the windows. Bishop Fox, afterwards Provost,
was originally entrusted with the supervision. He was
executor to Henry VII., who may possibly have seen
and approved the design ; and as almoner to Henry VIII.
Fox is believed to have used his influence in favour of
a petition which the Provost and Scholars had presented
for pecuniary aid. If only funds could be procured,
the time was favourable for an artistic use of them.
During the last half-century many illustrated books
had appeared, chiefly in Holland and at Nuremberg,
which provided the glass stainers with models for their
subjects. The art of glass-staining too had itself ad-
vanced; and, owing to the artist's increased mastery
over his material, or from some other cause, the single
figures characteristic of the fourteenth century had
given way to large pictorial subjects. Barnard Flower,
the King's glazier, received 100 in November 1515,
and the same sum in February 1517 ; it seems that he
completed four windows, one of which was that over
28 KING'S COLLEGE
the north porch. His death and other causes delayed
matters, and it was not till 1526 that another contract
provided for the completion of the remaining twenty-
two windows within five years. Among the names of
the glaziers we find some who seem to have been
Flemings ; and it has been suggested that the designs
were by foreigners and the execution by English hands.
Such a man as Bernard van Orley may very possibly
have had a share in the work. The scenes representing
the Death of Ananias, and Paul and Barnabas at Lystra,
remind us of Raphael's cartoons, and may even be derived
from them.
The contract of 1526 specified the windows of the
King's new Chapel at Westminster as the model to
be followed ; the price was to be Is. 6d. per foot, and
the windows were to be secured with double bonds of
lead "for defence of great wyndes and outragious
wetheringes." The windows were to represent the "story
of the old lawe and of the new lawe." Above and
below the transom in each are two separate pictures,
each pair being divided by a " Messenger," who bears a
scroll with a legend giving the subject represented.
In the lower tier the windows, from north-west to
south-west, represent the Life of the Virgin, the Life of
Christ, and the History of the Church as recorded in
the Acts of the Apostles. The upper tier has scenes
from the Old Testament or from Apocryphal sources,
which prefigure the events recorded below. But the
whole of the east window is devoted to the Passion and
Crucifixion ; the first window of the series is filled with
scenes connected with the Birth of the Virgin ; three of
the later windows on the south side are entirely taken
THE CHAPEL 29
up with the History of St. Paul or St. Peter ; while the
two last of the series, at the south-west corner, repre-
sent the Death and Assumption of the Virgin, together
with the appropriate types ; so that the general plan
is not strictly preserved throughout. The series of
scenes from the Acts is perhaps due to the influence of
the approaching Reformation ; at any rate, St. Paul
had been but little prominent hitherto in medieval
art.
The Last Judgment would in all probability have
formed the subject of the west window, as it does at
Fairford Church in Gloucestershire. The windows of
that church date from about 1490 ; and, like our own,
are a combination of English and foreign workmanship, if
we may j udge by their characteristic details ; like our
own, too, they represent the story of the Law and the
Gospel; but the plan is different, perhaps owing to the
smaller size of the windows. On the north side stand a
series of Prophets, each bearing a text, and opposite to
them are the Apostles holding sentences from the Creed.
Within the Chancel Screen the windows depict the
story of the Virgin, the Passion, and the Resurrection ;
and to make the history more complete, in the cleres-
tory are represented on the north the persecutors, and
on the south the martyrs of the Church. The Fairford
windows are said to have been taken down and con-
cealed in 1643, when Essex was marching upon Ciren-
cester. The story, in this case, is not improbable ; at
any rate they survive, and besides their own intrinsic
beauty they furnish a most interesting and instructive
parallel to our own glass.
Before the windows were quite finished an estimate
30 KING'S COLLEGE
was made for filling the fifty-four niches with statues
and for painting and gilding the great vault. As the
plan of our windows follows that of Henry VII.'s
Chapel, it is probable that the plan of the statuary,
which still remains in that Chapel, would also have
been followed. We can but guess what would have
been the combined effect of glass, painted vault, and
statues, for the two latter works were never executed.
Money perhaps fell short. What there was, was
applied to the erection of the rood-loft and lower
portion of the stalls. As the rood-loft has the arms,
badge, and initials of Anne Boleyn, its date must be
between 1533 and 1536. It is generally considered to
be of Italian workmanship ; but Mr. Scott thinks it
French rather than Italian in character, and compares
it to the stallwork of the church of St. Bertrand de
Comminges in the Pyrenees, which bears the date of
1537. The Will " of Henry VI. ordered thirty-six
stalls on each side, exclusive of those placed against the
rood-loft, for seventy Fellows and ten Conducts. No
sub-stalls were mentioned, but if distinguished strangers
were present, they were to occupy some of the stalls,
while the Fellows stood below. The number of stalls
was eventually reduced to sixty, and these were as yet
without their canopies, except those adjoining the
rood-loft. But the walls throughout were probably
covered with hangings.
A high altar was erected in 1545, but was removed
four years later, on the publication of King Edward's
first Prayer-book. The brass lectern, given by Robert
Hacumblen, who was Provost 1509-28, was already in
the Choir, which was paved with grey English marble,
THE CHAPEL 31
the gift of the King. About this time also a clock-
house was placed at the north-east corner of the Chapel ;
it was a wooden building with a tiled roof surmounted
by a tapering spire, and there it stood till 1817.
Even if no organ as yet stood in the rood-loft, some
simple instrument was doubtless used from the first to
accompany the Choir. Provision was certainly made
for another kind of church music ; for five bells were
sent by the Founder in 1443, and were hung in a
wooden belfry a little to the west of the Chapel. They
are said to have been the largest in England; one story
makes Pope Calixtus III. their donor, and another tells
us that they were taken from a French Church after
the battle of Agincourt. Whatever their origin, Mr.
J. W. Clark's researches into the College accounts shew
that they were replaced by at least one fresh set before
1470. The campanile projected by the Founder was
never built, and the wooden belfry proved an insufficient
protection. Early in the eighteenth century it fell into
decay, and was removed in 1739. For a time the bells
stood in the Ante-chapel, but in 1754 they were sold
for the sum of 532 10s. 3d., two of them being
cracked and the others considered useless.
The new church was probably ready for constant
use by 1536 or 1537 ; and it was in one of those years,
by a singular coincidence, that the old Chapel, which
had provided the means of worship to so many genera-
tions of Kingsmen, fell one evening, happily after the
conclusion of Vespers, so that no one was hurt. The
great Chapel and its services will generally be recog-
nised as the most striking features of King's College ;
the deepest and widest influences exercised by the
32 KING'S COLLEGE
College during three centuries and a half are due to
them, and the question is naturally asked, why the
building is so impressive. Certainly, it has not escaped
criticism ; but the fault which is found with its exterior
lies not in its construction but in its isolated position.
It is, in fact, a fragment of the Founders great design.
Had the church been connected with a quadrangle on
the south and a cloister on the west, the four turrets of
the main building leading up to the great campanile
of the cloisters, the general effect would have been very
different.
Even as it stands, however, it is a marvellous work.
In one sense it is unique, for it is a Cathedral in size
and a College Chapel in plan. It is striking also
from its apparent unity of design. We have seen
that important modifications were, in fact, intro-
duced during the seventy years which elapsed between
the laying of the first stone and the completion of the
fabric ; but to the uninitiated eye it might have been
the creation of a single night; and in this respect
it offers a contrast to most English Cathedrals, which
charm us by the varieties of their architecture almost as
much as by their intrinsic beauty. It is interesting also as
the meeting-point of the last Gothic with the earliest
Renaissance work. And the effect produced by the
combination of the great stone vault with the long line
of rich glass is one which can hardly be felt elsewhere,
except, indeed, at York Minster, where, alone among
English Cathedrals, there is the same happy union of
old stone work with old glass ; and there, though both
architecture and glass are earlier and in themselves
perhaps more interesting than at King^s, yet they are
From a photograph by] [J. Palmer Clarke, Cambridge
CHAPEL: INTERIOR (LOOKING EAST;
THE CHAPEL S3
not brought into such close contact with each other.
Like other really great works, King's Chapel produces
an impression which is instantaneous and at the same
time permanent. It does not disarm criticism, but it
compels admiration. And if any one is inclined to
criticise, let him look at the exterior on a moonlight
night from the south side of the Quadrangle, or from
the top of Trinity Street ; or let him take his stand
within the Ante-chapel at the north-west corner on a
bright summer's day, and cast his eye along the coloured
glass and stone vaulting till he catches a part of the
east window rising above the stately rood-loft ; and if
he does not feel that there is an inspiration in the
building which is above criticism, he must be a
" Man that hath no music in himself."
CHAPTER III
THE NEW LEARNING
WHILE the Chapel was growing in beauty, the Society
was gradually making itself felt in the University. But
the close of the fifteenth century was not remarkable
for activity of mind, at least in the English Universities.
Bishop Fisher, looking back from the year 1506, says
that
"a weariness of learning and study had stolen on the
University, whether owing to quarrels with townsmen, or
the prevailing fevers, or that there was a lack of helpers
and patrons of letters."
One is tempted to connect with this complaint the fact
that a large proportion of those admitted to King's
College threw up their Scholarships and left Cambridge
without proceeding to a degree; but as this habit
continued till late in Elizabeth's reign, it must have
been owing to other causes than those which Fisher
enumerates. It does not seem to have been due to a
lack of intellectual or practical ability in the Provosts.
Robert Wodelarke (Third Provost) was prominent in
the University, as well as energetic in carrying on the
building of his own College Chapel in dark days ; while
by founding St. Catharine's Hall he at least shewed his
THE NEW LEARNING 35
willingness to promote education. His successor, Walter
Field, had been Chaplain to Edward IV., and during
the first part of his Provostship, which lasted twenty
years, was even more successful than Wodelarke in
obtaining supplies for the building ; and John Argentine
was enough of a scholar to propose a series of subjects
for his " Act," as incepting Master of Arts, in Latin
Hexameters. Up to this time, however, Latin must
have monopolised the attention of Cambridge students,
and the Latin of the Schoolmen more than that of
classical authors ; and it may be that the early Provosts
of King's were administrators rather than teachers. Of
Richard Hatton, who was Provost from 1507 to 1509,
a curious story is told, which rests on fairly good
evidence.
" He was a very high coloured man in the Face, which
happened to him after this Manner, and for which he could
never get any Cure. When he was Bursar, being on the
Road to London upon College Business, and having a con-
siderable charge of Money about him, he was tempted to
take some Repose under the shade of some Trees during
the excessive Heat ; but happening to fall asleep, a Welsh
servant that attended him, endeavouring to cut his Throat,
awaked him ; upon which he striving to defend himself,
the Villain struck him across the face with a Dagger ; but
being overmatched by his Master in the Struggle was by
him carried to the next Town, and from thence to the
County Gaol, where the Law had its course against him.
After he was chosen Provost he rarely wore his Doctor's
Robes ; and being asked the Reason of it, he replied that
a Scarlet Gown did not become so bloody a Colour, at the
same time pointing to his face."
36 KING'S COLLEGE
The new learning was now beginning to dawn upon
Cambridge. Erasmus began his residence as Lady
Margaret's Professor in 1511. Among his earliest
friends were two young Kingsmen, John Bryan, who was
afterwards a champion of the genuine text of Aristotle,
and Robert Aldrich, who went with Erasmus to
Walsingham in Norfolk, where they made fun of the
relics. The character of Aldrich was perhaps hardly
on a par with his intelligence and learning ; but he was
a successful man, was employed on missions to the Pope
and the King of France, and became Provost of Eton
and Bishop of Carlisle. He is said to have complied
with all the changes of religion, and in the reign of
Mary acted as a Commissioner for the suppression of
heresies. His office of Bishop took him away from
Eton during the session of Parliament, but it does not
seem to have kept him much in his diocese, for in 1541
the Privy Council found that he was " lingering at his
comfortable residence at Eton,*" and commanded him to
return to Carlisle, " there to remain for the feeding of
the people both with his preaching and good hospi-
tality. 1 '
Erasmus left Cambridge in the late autumn of 1513,
disheartened by his apparent want of success. But the
seed was sown ; and seven years later, he declares that
sound theology is flourishing at Paris and Cambridge
more than at any other University, " because they are
receiving the new learning not as an enemy but
courteously as a guest." A welcome, too, was given at
many Cambridge Colleges to Erasmus's great work, the
Novum Instrumentum, printed at Basle in 1516, in
which not only a more genuine text of the Greek
THE NEW LEARNING 37
Testament is furnished to students, but the comments
of Erasmus set forth the real teaching of Christ and his
Apostles in glaring contrast to the doctrine and practices
of clergy and monks.
It was about this time, in 1518, that Bryan of King^s
in his lectures as a Regent M.A., turned aside from the ,
old disputes on nominalism and realism, and taught
from a genuine Greek text of Aristotle himself. But
now a greater champion of Greek appeared from the
same College in the person of Richard Croke. This
remarkable man had certainly not been a " home-keep-
ing youth." Soon after taking his B.A. degree he had
removed to Oxford in order to study Greek under
Grocyn. After this he had gone abroad and taught
the language at Cologne, Louvain, and Leipsic. It was
at this last University that his reputation reached its
highest point. Erasmus, writing in 1515, says, " Crocus
regnat in Academia Lipsiensi " : and at Erfurt a foreign
scholar found himself famous simply because he had
been a pupil of Croke, "qui primus putabatur ita
docuisse Graecam linguam in Germania ut plane perdisci
illam posse . . . nostri homines sese intelligere arbitra-
rentur." An Englishman teaching Greek to Germans
strikes us as rather a strange phenomenon. By the
year 1519 Croke had returned to Cambridge, taken a
M.A. degree, and been appointed Greek Reader to the
University. Compared to his predecessor Erasmus, he
started with a great advantage ; for he was young and
vigorous, an Englishman dealing with English students,
and one who added to this the prestige of a brilliant
career on the Continent ; and there were " Trojans "
enough at Cambridge to make such advantages valuable
38 KING'S COLLEGE
to a champion of Greek. His inaugural lecture is, in
part, an apology for the study of the language. It was
delivered in Latin of Quintilian's style. He urges that
Greek is the tongue of a superior race ; in itself and in
its literature to be preferred to Latin. He professes
not to undervalue the Schoolmen and the old-fashioned
disputations ; but Greek is useful for the studies both
of the Trivium and the Quadrivium, and invaluable for
that knowledge of the New Testament which has a
paramount claim on theologians. And, after all, Greek
is not so very difficult ; time can be found for it if men
will deduct a little from what is now given to sleep,
sports, play, and idle talk. A few years later the poet
Skelton complains that the new learning has driven out
the old ; and as Croke was elected Public Orator for life
for the two reasons curiously coupled together, that
" primus invexit literas Graecas et regi carus est," we
may be pretty sure that his lectures were really suc-
cessful. The University of Oxford, where he had first
learned his Greek, offered him a large stipend to reside
and teach it there. Archbishop Warham and Sir
Thomas More pressed him to consent, but Fisher's
influence succeeded for the time in keeping him at
Cambridge. Probably it was Fisher's influence also
which had provided him with a Fellowship at St. John's ;
and if so, it was the more ungracious, not to say
ungrateful, in Croke that he protested against a pro-
posal to hold an annual service in commemoration of
the man who had done so much both for St. John's
College and the University. Some years later, in 1531,
Croke became a Canon of Wolsey's new College at
Oxford, which had not yet taken the name of Christ
THE NEW LEARNING 39
Church. But in the interval he had made himself con-
spicuous by his efforts on the question of the divorce of
Queen Catherine, consulting MSS. at Venice or Bologna
for passages in support of Henry's view, and adminis-
tering gratuities to win or to reward the goodwill of
the learned men with whom he conferred at the Italian
Universities. It is to be feared that the sunshine of
royal favour had converted the scholar into a courtier,
and that there is some truth in Dr. Caius's description
of him as " homo certe doctus sed in gloriam suam
officiosissimus." One cannot but regret that the last
recorded act of his life was that he testified to Cran-
mer's heresy at Oxford in September 1555. He had
begun by urging the duty of studying the New Testa-
ment. He had boasted to Cromwell of the number of
sermons which he had preached in favour of the King's
supremacy. It is possible that his Protestantism
stopped here, and that his own religious convictions
remained the same as those of his royal master.
If King's College had given Richard Croke to St.
John's, the latter College repaid the debt by giving
John Cheke to King's. It was he, more than any one
else, who carried on the work of Erasmus and Croke,
and made Cambridge students familiar with the poets,
historians, and philosophers of Greece. But his career
as a teacher belongs to the history of his first College.
It was not till 1548 that he became Provost of King's.
Naturally there was some resistance to his election,
as he had none of the qualifications required by the
Statutes ; but, ten years earlier, the Fellows had
accepted another alien in the person of George Day,
and it was not safe to resist the King's will. Cheke had
40 KING'S COLLEGE
resigned his Greek Professorship a year before, and was
now a Member of Parliament, and a statesman, though
he still remained Tutor to Prince Edward. He must
have felt some scruples in taking the place of his own
old Tutor, Day, still Bishop of Chichester, though now in
disgrace and prison ; and a few years later we find him
writing a touching letter to King Edward on behalf of
the late Provost, and at the same time recommending
Walter Haddon as successor to his own office at King^s.
At this time Cheke believed himself to be dying ; and
perhaps it would have been better for his own happiness
and fame if his life had not been prolonged. But he
recovered from his illness ; he was knighted, and
became Secretary of State to Lady Jane Grey ; and it
was at his Lodge that the Duke of Northumberland was
arrested. The part which he took at this crisis was
naturally fatal to his own fortunes. After a short stay
in the Tower, he was allowed to go abroad ; but he was
deprived of his Provostship and of his private estates,
and reduced to support himself by teaching at Stras-
burg. Three years later he was arrested in Flanders,
and sent to the Tower once more. This time he was
not to be spared except on one condition, viz., that he
should recant the Protestantism of which he had been a
champion. In a w r eak moment he gave way ; but
remorse for his weakness affected his health, and he died
at a friend's house in London in 1557.
Neither Cheke nor Croke seem to have been of the
stuff of which martyrs are made ; but all testimony
goes to show that Cheke, at least, was a warm-hearted
and honourable man. And it may be that for men of
the keenest intellect and greatest learning it was
THE NEW LEARNING 41
doubly difficult to attain such certainty on points of
controversial theology, as would enable them to stake
everything on the truth of the views which they had
themselves sincerely adopted. At any rate, these two
men had done much to give their College a prominent
position in the University and to secure the teaching of
Greek within its walls. Every College had indeed been
ordered, in 1585, to provide a daily public lecture both
in Latin and Greek ; but it appears that, after the
foundation of the Regius Professorship in 1540, King's
was one of the only three Colleges in which the Greek
lecture was still maintained. No doubt the compara-
tive wealth of the College was much in its favour.
When Parliament, in 1534, granted Henry VIII. the
first fruits and tenths of ecclesiastical foundations, a
valuation of College incomes was made. At Cambridge
King's came first with 151 ; St. John's next with
507. The stipend of the Provost was so much above
that of other Heads that a Master of St. John's did not
hesitate to accept the Provostship of King's.
By 1545, when a dissolution of Colleges was threat-
ened, and the University begged the Queen (Katherine
Parr) to intercede for them, the revenue of King's
College had risen to <1010; and the list of members
which follows must have made an imposing show
compared to other foundations. It consists of a Pro-
vost, Vice-Provost, Dean of Divinity, two Deans of Arts,
three Bursars, a Sacrist, four Fellows who were Priests,
fifteen not Priests, nineteen B.A. Fellows, twenty-four
Scholars. Considering the requirements of the Statutes,
the number of four Priests seems small, but probably all
or most of the eight officers were also in Priests' orders.
42 KING'S COLLEGE
The large proportion of young members of the College
is also noticeable ; forty-three out of seventy had not
resided more than seven years in the College, and the
average number of vacant Scholarships in each year
must have been eight. The list of stipendiary members
is made up of ten Priests Conducts, six Clerks, sixteen
Choristers, an Auditor, a Clerk of Accounts, Stewards,
a Clerk of Sacristy, and thirteen servants.
During this period we find evidence that the provi-
sions of the Statutes requiring two of the Fellows to
study medicine had borne some fruit. Provost Argen-
tine was physician to the two sons of Henry VII. ; John
Blythe, who had married Sir John Cheke's sister, and
must therefore have ceased to be an actual Fellow of
KingX was the first Regius Professor of Physic ; and
before the close of the century two more Kingsmen
held the same Professorship.
CHAPTER IV
BISHOPS AND MARTYRS
EVERY Scholar of King's College, on completing his
three years of probation, was bound by the Statutes to
swear that he would never throughout life favour the
errors or heresies of John Wyclif, Reginald Pecock, or
any other heretic. It was now to be seen whether this
obligation would bear the strain of a religious revolu-
tion. The revival of the study of Greek and the
publication of Erasmus's New Testament had given the
first impulse to the spirit of inquiry, and in 1520
Luther's three famous treatises appeared. Pecock had
questioned the authority of Fathers and Schoolmen,
but had stoutly maintained that of the Pope. Luther
appealed from the Pope to a General Council, and
demanded that the teaching of the Schoolmen should
be superseded by that of the Bible. Within a year the
three treatises were burned at St. Paul's Cross, and the
meetings of reformers at Cambridge were necessarily
held in secret. The White Horse Inn, which adjoined
the Bull Hotel on the north, was the place chosen, and
received the nickname of " Germany." A young
Scholar of King's, John Frith, was among those who
frequented this place; but the leading spirit was
Thomas Bilney, of Trinity Hall, and it was he who, a
44 KING'S COLLEGE
few years later, converted Hugh Latimer. The Bishop
of Ely at this time was Nicholas West, who was in
many ways a typical mediaeval prelate. The son of a
baker in Putney, he was now second only to Wolsey,
the butcher's son, in his magnificence. He became a
Scholar of King's in 1477, and if we could believe
Fuller's account
" was so desperately turbulent that, discontented with the
loss of the Proctorship, he endeavoured to fire the Provost's
lodgings ; and having stolen some silver spoons departed
the College. Afterwards he became a new man, D.D., and
Bishop of Ely, who to expiate his former faults gave many
rich gifts and plate to the College, and built part of the
Provost's lodgings."
It is difficult, however, to accept the first part of this
story in the face of the facts that he held his Fellow-
ship till 1498, that he was appointed to the College
living of Kingston in 1502, and that he became Dean
of Windsor in 1510. In the early years of Henry VIII.'s
reign he was often employed in the highest diplomatic
missions, and accompanied the King to the Field of the
Cloth of Gold. At Ely, where he became Bishop in 1515,
he had 100 servants in rich liveries to attend him, while
200 poor were daily fed at his palace gates. And his
magnificence survived him in the rich Memorial Chapel
which he raised for himself at the south-east corner
of the Choir of the Cathedral. It was likely that such
a man would come into collision with the Cambridge
reformers ; and the fame of Latimer's preaching induced
him to pay a surprise visit to St. Mary's. Latimer was
equal to the occasion, changed his text, and preached
BISHOPS AND MARTYRS 45
on the contrast between the lives led by the superior
clergy and the life of their Master. The Bishop after-
wards thanked Latimer for expounding the duties of
the Episcopal office, but begged him to preach one
more sermon in the same place against Martin Luther
and his doctrine. Latimer excused himself on the
ground that he did not know Luther's doctrine, and
that at Cambridge they were not allowed to read his
works ; he was sure, however, that what he had that
day preached was Scripture doctrine. For the moment
the Bishop was checkmated, but he had his revenge
by preaching himself against Latimer at Barnwell
Abbey, and he followed this up by inhibiting Latimer
from preaching. Strange to say, this inhibition was
shortly afterwards removed by Wolsey. Four years
later, in 1529, Latimer's two " sermons on the Card "
(in which he borrowed terms from the games which
marked the festivities of Christmas in order to illustrate
the duties of a Christian life), provoked the Bishop to
attack him once more; but this time Buckenham, a
Dominican Prior, was Latimer's chief antagonist. The
contest, however, was stopped by a letter from the
King's Almoner, Edward Fox, who was now Provost of
West's old College. When Bishop West died in 1533,
another Kingsman, Nicholas Hawkins, was nominated
as his successor. There would probably have been
changes in the Palace at Ely had he lived to be conse-
crated, for as Archdeacon he had sold, at a time of
famine, all his plate and goods to relieve the poor of
the Isle of Ely, and was content himself to be served in
wooden dishes and earthen pots.
One more Kingsman may be mentioned, who was
46 KING'S COLLEGE
certainly not on the side of the reformers. This was
Richard Master, of Maidstone, who had served the
office of Proctor, and left the College as a B.D., with
the character of an excellent scholar and philosopher.
His philosophy, however, was not equal to the ordeal
which awaited him, when he became Rector of Alding-
ton, in Romney Marsh, a living to which Archbishop
Warham had once presented Erasmus, and the tithes of
which were still paid to Erasmus as a pension. One of
his parishioners, a servant-girl, Elizabeth Barton, was
popularly supposed to have been miraculously cured,
and to be an inspired prophetess. There were men in
the county who could not resist the temptation to make
use of her for their own ecclesiastical or political pur-
poses. She was removed to Canterbury, and as the
Nun of Kent she denounced the views of the reformers,
but especially the King's marriage with Anne Boleyn,
and prophesied his speedy death. She may have begun
by being hysterical ; she certainly ended by being an
impostor. During the earlier part of her career she
was encouraged by Master ; her fame brought pilgrims
and gifts to his parish ; but it is quite possible that his
belief in her was genuine, for Fisher would not disown
her, and Warham thought her claims serious enough to
be brought before Wolsey and the King himself. The
sequel was tragical enough. An act of attainder was
passed against the unfortunate maid and her patrons,
and Master himself was one of those who were executed
as traitors.
About this time, 1525-27, Cardinal Wolsey was
founding at Oxford his College, which bore the names
of "Cardinal" and "King's" before it gained its final
BISHOPS AND MARTYRS 47
designation of Christ Church. The Master of Pembroke
was invited to choose Cambridge men to go as colonists
to the new settlement. Whether by accident or design,
several of the Kingsmen chosen were men whose minds
were ripe for Lutheran doctrine. Of Richard Cox and
John Frith mention will be made hereafter, but Fuller
adds to these John Fryer and Henry Sumptner. Fryer
seems to have been a man of versatile gifts, for when
he was committed a prisoner to the Master of the
Savoy, he " did much solace himself with playing the
lute, wherein he had great skill." He then escaped,
went abroad, and became an eminent physician ; but he
ultimately returned to England and to the Roman
Catholic obedience. Henry Sumptner was less fortunate,
for he was thrown into a cave under the College, where
the salt fish was kept, and died in 1527 from bad food
and foul air.
In Nicholas West we had an instance of a prosperous
prelate who would make no terms with the reformers.
Two Kingsmen must now be mentioned, who in different
ways and with marked success adopted the cause of
Protestantism. These were Edward Fox and Richard
Cox. Six or seven years only separated them at
College ; but Fox, the senior, died before the crisis of
the religious troubles when under fifty years of age;
Cox lived on far into the quieter times of Queen
Elizabeth. Fox appears chiefly as the champion and
advocate of Henry's divorce from his first wife. As
secretary io Wolsey he first gains his introduction into
political life. In 1528 he is sent to Rome with Bishop
Gardiner to induce Clement VII. to grant a Bull for the
divorce of Catherine. The next year he introduces
48 KING'S COLLEGE
Cranmer to the King as a man who will be a useful
ally^ and in 1530 he takes a chief part in persuading
the University of Cambridge to pass a vote favourable
to Henry's prime object. Mr. Mullinger's account of
the way in which this result was achieved shews us that
Fox and his friends were far from scrupulous about the
means which they employed in gaining their end. Fox's
exertions in the cause did not, however, stop here ; at
Oxford and at Paris he helped to obtain similar
decisions from the Universities. He had his reward,
for he was made Provost of King's in 1528 and Bishop
of Hereford in 1535. It was in this last year that he
went to Smalcald to win over the Protestant Princes to
the "King's Cause"; at Wittenberg he had an interview
with Luther, who was too honest to promise more than
a fair inquiry into the merits of the case; and at
Frankfort he waited till the German divines dismissed
him with an answer which seemed to condemn both the
King's original marriage with Katherine and his sub-
sequent conduct in divorcing her. In 1538 Fox died.
It is impossible to feel sympathy for the cause to which
he devoted his life ; but he was undoubtedly a subtle
and able negotiator, and among his contemporaries his
talents and eloquence gave him great influence. He
was called "the wonder of the University and the
darling of the Court." Some of his sayings sound like
anticipations of aphorisms in Bacon's essays.
If Fox's name is identified with the Divorce question,
Richard Cox was no less the champion of the Book of
Common Prayer. As Tutor and Almoner of Edward VI.
he naturally took a part in compiling both editions of
the book ; and during his exile in Mary's reign he had
BISHOPS AND MARTYRS 49
an opportunity of showing the strength of his attach-
ment to the English liturgy. At Frankfort a number
of Protestant refugees were collected, who had been
persuaded by John Knox to discard their Prayer Book.
Cox came to the rescue in March 1554, and for a year
the controversy raged. Cox insisted on repeating the
responses and in reading the Litany from the pulpit.
Knox, when he got his turn, inveighed against the
Prayer Book, and twitted Cox with the number of
ecclesiastical offices which he had held. Cox had
undoubtedly been a pluralist, but he gained his point,
and Knox was forbidden to preach and requested by
the authorities to leave the town. Nearly ten years
before this Cox had done good service to the Universities
as well as to the Church. In 1546, Parliament had
placed the properties of the Colleges at the disposal of
the King, and it was partly owing to a spirited protest
made by Cox to Sir William Paget, Secretary of State,
to " stay impropriations," that confiscation was averted.
He was never afraid to speak out; he told Queen
Elizabeth that his conscience would not permit him to
officiate in her chapel if she continued to use lights and
a crucifix; and he risked his influence with her still
further by defending the right of Deans and Canons to
marry, urging that enforced celibacy would result in
their non-residence. In this last matter he certainly
practised what he preached, for at seventy years of age
he married a second wife; an offence so grave in the
Queen's eyes, that he was brought before the Star
Chamber and narrowly escaped imprisonment. But, as
a general rule, his words were braver than his deeds ;
and he had no notion of toleration either for Romanists
50 KING'S COLLEGE
or for Protestant " Sectaries." Another blot also rests
on his memory. He was one of the Commissioners
who destroyed valuable books and MSS. in the Oxford
libraries under the pretext that they tended to Popery.
It would seem that neither as Headmaster of Eton nor
as Dean of Christ Church, both of which offices he held,
had he learned to respect literary documents ; and Sir
J. Harington tells us how
" an Oxford doctor said merrily to a Cambridge man that
Oxford had formerly a good Library till such time as a
Cambridge man became our Chancellor, and so cancelled,
catalogued, and scattered our books as from that time to
this we could never recover them."
As Bishop of Ely Cox had much difficulty in defending
the estates of the See from the encroachments of the
Crown and courtiers. He did, indeed, succeed in pre-
venting Lord North from appropriating the Palace of
Somersham and Manor of Downham ; but, after a hard
fight, he had to surrender his house at Holborn to Sir
Christopher Hatton. At last, worn out with years and
troubles, he desired to resign his Bishopric, and retire
to the Palace and Manor of Doddington with a pension
of %QO. His enemies accused him of avarice; but
Leland, when asked if he could find a perfect character,
chose Cox, of whom he wrote :
et Is vir judicio omnium piorum
Omni ex parte fidelis integerque."
Leland, however, only knew him in his younger days,
and there may be truth in Sir J. Harington's verdict,
" Coepisti melius quam desinis."
BISHOPS AND MARTYRS 51
Such men as Cox probably escaped the stake by
voluntary exile ; but there were others who either could
not, or would not, adopt this course. John Frith was
the first member of the College who suffered death for
his religious opinions, when hardly thirty years of age ;
the friend and assistant of William Tyndale, and a man
in whom even his enemies could find no flaw. He was
the son of an innkeeper at Sevenoaks, and as a B.A. of
1525 was one of the batch of Cambridge Scholars who
were established at Wolsey*s College in Oxford. Here
his opinions got him into trouble ; but he was allowed
to go abroad, where he lived for several years at Mar-
burg and in Holland. His abilities were such that
Henry VIII. was ready to promote him if he would
renounce his opinions. Instead of doing this, he wrote
a treatise on Purgatory which was sure to bring him
into collision with Sir Thomas More and Bishop Fisher.
In 1532 he came over to England, having some business
to transact with the Prior at Reading. There he was
seized as a vagrant and put in the stocks ; but a bene-
volent schoolmaster, struck by his learning, exerted
himself to obtain his freedom. However, he was too
well known to escape for long ; and being arrested in
London, and sent to the Tower, he there occupied him-
self in writing his views on the Sacrament of the Lord's
Supper, a work which was the real cause of his death,
for he repudiated Transubstantiation, and maintained
the doctrine subsequently adopted in the English
Prayer Book. Sir Thomas More got possession of
a copy of his treatise and wrote an answer to it;
Frith himself was examined by various Bishops ; and
Cranmer, who afterwards adopted Frith's views, tried to
52 KING'S COLLEGE
persuade him to renounce them. But Frith stood firm,
and was burnt at Smithfield, July 4, 1533.
More than twenty years later three other Kingsmen
followed in his steps. One of these was Laurence
Saunders, a man of good family, who was apprenticed to
a London merchant ; but, having a distaste for business
and an irrepressible yearning for religious truth, he soon
returned to Cambridge, and studied Greek, Hebrew,
and the Scriptures. He became first a lecturer in
Divinity at Fotheringay, and then Rector of a London
church. It is said of him that on Mary's accession he
met a certain Dr. Pendleton, and that Saunders con-
fessed that he doubted his own strength to bear much
suffering. The doctor reproved him ; but when the
ordeal came, it was Pendleton who failed and Saunders
who stood firm. He might have escaped when Sir
Thomas Wyatt with his army reached Southwark, but
he considered the insurrection illegal, and would not
take advantage of it. After fifteen months of imprison-
ment he was taken to Coventry to be burned.
At Coventry, too, suffered Robert Glover, a layman
and a man of some property in the Midlands. His
arrest was accidental, for his elder brother was named in
the warrant, but had escaped ; and Robert, who was in
bad health, was seized in his place. It is evident
from Glover's letter to his wife that love for her and
anxiety for his young children's welfare made it difficult
for him to die. But he refused to recant. Out of
weakness he was made strong. The fourth Kingsman,
John Hullier, left the College when still a Scholar ; but
he afterwards became a Conduct or Chaplain of the
College, and Vicar of Babraham ; and he is interesting
BISHOPS AND MARTYRS 53
as being apparently the only resident who suffered at
Cambridge in Queen Mary's reign. He was burned on
Jesus Green.
Meanwhile, a Commission appointed by Cardinal
Pole, among whom were the Master of Trinity and the
Provost of Eton, were visiting Cambridge in order to
extirpate heresy at its source. Their headquarters were
at King's College. According to Fuller, they
"resorted to King's College because the same for the
worthiness thereof was chief and sovereign of all the
residue, or else because that house especially, before all
others, had been counted time out of mind never to be
without a heretic (as they term them) or twain. And at
that present time, albeit that many now of late had with-
drawn themselves from thence, yet they judged there were
some remaining still."
At King's they began their proceedings by hearing a
Mass of the Holy Ghost, two of them occupying the
Provost's stall and two the Vice-Provost's. There also
they dined ; but, being anxious to appear as judges
rather than guests, they " ordered that not more than
three kinds of meat at most should be prepared." Yet
" one capon chanced to be served more than was pre-
scribed, and they thrust it away in great displeasure."
The Provost, Dr. Brassie, who had already shewn his
independence of spirit as Vice-Chancellor, by resisting
a movement on the part of the impoverished Univer-
sity to sell to the townsmen the privileges which the
University possessed in St Hi-bridge Fair, is described
as a " worthy old man both for his wisdom and his hoar
hairs." He protested against the jurisdiction of the
54 KING'S COLLEGE
Commissioners, and declared that the reformation of his
house belonged solely to the Bishop of Lincoln. Such
a protest was not likely to weigh much with men backed
by the authority of a Cardinal, but it does not seem
that the Commissioners did much harm. Provost
Atkinson, a staunch Romanist, who had succeeded Sir
John Cheke in 1553, and had died of the Plague three
years later when on a College circuit, had already
replaced the high Altar, and had perhaps not left much
for the Commissioners to do. They examined books, but
it does not appear that they followed Cox's example by
destroying any. All that is recorded is that the Provost
and many Fellows "received injunctions and penance
very grievous to some."
CHAPTER V
THE SPACIOUS TIMES OF GREAT
ELIZABETH
THE accession of Elizabeth must have been welcomed
by the Universities, as well as by the nation at large,
with feelings of relief and hope. Neither learning nor
discipline was flourishing at Cambridge, and in the
year 1558-59 only twenty-eight students proceeded to
the B.A. degree. Dr. Caius, who revisited the Univer-
sity at this time after a long absence, was struck by the
change for the worse. He missed the dignified elders
of former days proceeding to the disputations in the
schools, attended by the chief members of their respec-
tive Colleges.
The undergraduates no longer respectfully saluted
their seniors from afar and made way for them in the
streets ; many seemed to have discarded the long gown
and cap. They wandered about the town, frequenting
taverns and wine-shops; their nether garments were
of gaudy colours ; they gambled and ran into debt.
Though the study of Greek had been introduced half a
century ago, yet the number of the parish clergy who
understood even Latin was small. Elizabeth and her
Ministers were determined to improve this state of
things, and in particular to promote the study of
56 KING'S COLLEGE
theology at the Universities. The character of that
theology could not fail to be affected by the Continental
Protestantism which the exiled divines now brought
back to England ; and it was perhaps in order to shew
that she did not mean to break entirely with the past
that Elizabeth authorised the use of a Latin version of
the Prayer Book in College Chapels. A competent
translator was found in a Kingsman, Walter Haddon,
who was reputed to be the best Latin writer of his
time, and who had lately held the Mastership of Trinity
Hall and the Regius Professorship of Civil Law.
In most Colleges the existing Heads declined to take
the oath of Supremacy, and either resigned or were
expelled. At King's College it so happened that
Provost Brassie died. The place had been promised by
Queen Mary to Richard Grey, Vicar of Withyham ;
but Elizabeth, while still at Hatfield, nominated Philip
Baker, a native of Barnstaple, and at this time Rector
of Elsworth in Huntingdonshire.
The choice turned out an unfortunate one, and Baker,
as Vice-Chancellor in 1562, made a bad beginning by
committing to prison the Vice-Master of Trinity, on
grounds which proved to be insufficient when an appeal
was made to the Chancellor.
The interest which the Queen took in her two Uni-
versities was shewn by a visit to Cambridge in the
summer of 1564. At 2 P.M. on August 5, the Queen
rode in from Haslingfield, and found the members of
the University lining the street from Queens' College to
the west door of King's Chapel. Within the Ante-
chapel stood Provost Baker and others in copes. The
church itself was hung with tapestry, and the floor
THE TIMES OF GREAT ELIZABETH 57
covered with rushes and carpeting. As soon as Eliza-
beth reached the west door, William Master, a Fellow of
King's, and Public Orator, delivered a long Latin speech,
which the Queen, still seated on her horse, occasionally
interrupted by comments partly in Latin and partly in
English. When at last Master stopped, she commended
him, wondered at his memory, and said she would reply
in Latin, but her Latin would be false, and they would
laugh at her. Then the choir sang in English, and the
whole party moved up into the inner chapel, the Queen
taking her place under a canopy at the east end. The
Provost began the Te Deum in English, which was
solemnly sung in pricksong, the organs playing ; this
was followed by evensong. The Queen then went out
by a passage made through a window of the north-east
side chapel to her lodgings at King's Lodge, receiving
on her way a present of gloves and comfits.
The Lodge was a long, low building, standing
between the east end of the Chapel and the High Street.
The greater part of it had been built at the same time
as the old Court ; and an inventory of 1452 specifies
seven rooms besides a pantry, buttery, and a stable in
which five horses were kept. To these rooms an oratory
was soon added ; but before the end of Henry VIII.'s
reign more extensive improvements were made at the
south end, including a large room and a gallery, and
money was spent in hangings and wainscoting. Carter,
writing as late as 1753, says of it, that " tho' it make
not so grand an outside appearance as some do, yet
within few exceed it for grandeur and convenient
apartments." We may therefore conclude that the
Queen could not have found more comfortable quarters
58 KING'S COLLEGE
elsewhere. The lower hall was used as a guard- chamber ;
the room above it became the chamber of presence ; the
gallery and adjoining rooms served for the Queen's
lodging. The three days which followed the Queen's
arrival were devoted to church services, plays, and
University disputations. On August 6, being a Sunday,
Elizabeth was naturally present in King's Chapel at a
Litany and sermon ; in the afternoon she was not
expected, and the service had already begun, when she
appeared ; on her arrival it was stopped and begun
over again.
On the evening of Sunday the Aulularia of Plautus
was acted in the Ante-chapel, the Queen sitting against
the south wall, and some ladies occupying the rood-loft.
The other plays acted by members of the College were
Dido., written by a Kingsman, John Rightwise, formerly
High Master of St. Paul's School, and Ezechias, an
English play by Nicholas Udall, a former Headmaster
of Eton. In the disputations held in the Schools, or in
St. Mary's Church, Kingsmen were again prominent;
for while Bishop Cox and Dr. Haddon presided in their
respective faculties, Thomas Preston was the man who
made the most favourable impression on the Queen.
He had the advantage of youth and good looks, and
acted so well in Dido, and " did so genteelly and grace-
fully dispute before her that she gave him a pension of
%0 a year besides viii. angels and her hand to kiss."
The more solid abilities of Cartwright, the other chief
disputant, were quite eclipsed by the handsome Preston,
and it is said, though probably without any truth, that
the disgust which Cartwright felt on this occasion was
the cause of his subsequent disaffection to the Church.
THE TIMES OF GREAT ELIZABETH 59
If the prominence of Kingsmen on this occasion was
merely accidental, it is the more remarkable that much
the same thing happened when the Queen came again
into the neighbourhood of Cambridge. This was in
July 1578, at Audley End. The Vice-Chancellor and
Heads repaired thither in their gowns and hoods, and
the Public Orator, Mr. Bridgewater, of King's College,
knelt down and made a speech. After the Queen's
departure a disputation in philosophy was held before
Lord Leicester ; and Mr. Fleming, of King's, maintained
two theses, one of which was "Astra non imponunt
necessitatem." Whether his argument was directed
against Astrology or in favour of Free Will is not
recorded ; but probably both were burning questions at
that time ; and, if we may accept Sir Walter Scott's
description of Leicester in Kemlworth as an authentic
likeness, the Lord High Steward himself must have
been tempted to enter the lists against Mr. Fleming in
defence of Astrology. Another Kingsman was Mode-
rator ; but the Chancellor practically took this duty on
his own shoulders.
But before this second visit took place, more prac-
tical controversies had arisen at Cambridge ; ' for signs of
disaffection to the Ecclesiastical Settlement were already
visible in the opposition to wearing a surplice, an oppo-
sition which was especially conspicuous in St. John's
and Trinity. From this controversy King's College was
free ; and one of the Fellows, Bartholomew Clark, LL.D.,
wrote to the Chancellor, protesting against the
" trifling " " of these surplice and hat fanatics," and
complaining that the time, which used to be devoted to
good arts and sciences, was now taken up with j anglings
60 KING'S COLLEGE
" de lana caprina." But the Kingsmen had troubles of
their own. For just at this time they were engaged in
sending to their Visitor, Bishop Bullingham, a com-
plaint against their Provost ; and in 1565 the Bishop
held a visitation. At the same time, feeling perhaps
that it was a bold measure to impugn the conduct of a
Head who had been chosen by Elizabeth herself, eleven
of the Fellows wrote to the Secretary, Cecil, to make it
clear that it was no objection to the "habits "that
induced them to act so ; but
" our care is for the promoting of Religion, which for a long
time hath been of little or no account with us ; and our own
private domestic Concerns are now become in so bad and
difficult a state that the safety of the whole College is in
danger."
The charges brought before the Visitor against Baker
were, that he never preached, though a D.D., that he
had no regard to Divinity in others, nor had caused the
Fellows to study it ; that no Sacrament was adminis-
tered, but once, or at most twice, in the whole year.
The Conducts and singing men were manifestly Papists,
his own guests the most suspected Papists, and it was
added that he used one Mr. Wool ward, then a Conduct
and afterwards a Fellow of Eton, " verie extremely,"
because he refused to celebrate the service at the Com-
munion with his face towards the East and his back
towards the Congregation. It further appeared that
Baker had already been deprived of the Living of St.
Andrew's, in London, for refusing to renounce the Pope
and his doctrine. The Visitor admonished the Provost,
and enjoined him to destroy a great deal of Popish
THE TIMES OF GREAT ELIZABETH 61
stuff, as Mass books, graduals, copes, crosses, pixes, c.,
" which the Provost did not perform, but kept them in
a secret corner " ; for, as he shrewdly remarked on
another occasion, " that which hath bin may be
againe."
Four years passed, and the complaints were renewed,
but this time the Fellows applied to Grindal, Bishop of
London, and Visitors were appointed by the Queen.
New charges were now added to the old list. The
Provost was said to have shown favouritism in preferring
a Junior Regent to be Proctor, and tyranny in stopping
the B. A. degrees of four young Fellows who had opposed
him ; it was added that he had taken bribes in letting
College leases, and in other ways had fraudulently
enriched himself at the cost of the Society. He would
let no one go with him to the College Courts, kept all
profits to himself, and charged five times as much for
his circuit expenses as had heretofore been done. In
performing his duties in the University he was, to say
the least, slack.
" His rare frequenting of sermons, and continuall absence
from all disputations is so intolerable that in every sermon
almost he is cried owte of, and sometimes touched by name
to the no small infamie of the College. Whereas he should
be a disputer at Commencement, two or three days before
he flieth the towne, so that herein he is as infamous as in
his not preaching."
So notorious was his conduct that at one Commence-
ment he had been described as "pistori quam pastori
similior." The fact that Baker was at heart a Romanist
will account for most of his shortcomings. A man with
62 KING'S COLLEGE
his views could neither preach himself, nor could he
conscientiously insist on the punctual performance of
the Reformed Service in his Chapel. Possibly he might
have been able to answer the charges of peculation.
But it would have been useless. He was evidently out
of harmony with the' new order of things. He hardly
waited to be deprived of his office, but fled abroad,
giving, however, a last proof of his integrity by resigning
the College money and plate which was in his custody,
and even sending back the College horses which carried
him to the seaside. " Nothing in his life became him
like the leaving it."
The field being now clear, the College lost no time in
applying both to the Chancellor and to the Queen for
leave to elect Roger Goad, a former Fellow, who was
now Master of the Grammar School at Guildford.
Leave was given ; and in 1569 the new Provost began
his long reign of forty-one years. The influence of a
strong will soon made itself felt. The Statute, which
required Fellows of a certain standing to be " diverted "
to divinity, law, or physic, had been much neglected.
It was now enforced, and the number of clerical Fellows
and qualified Preachers rapidly increased. The Library
had been " utterly spoiled." Goad caused a " fair new
Library to be made in the Southern side chapels, and
furnished it with books, especially of divinity." The
"old copes and Popish stuff" which the last Provost
had secreted were sold for this purpose, and no charge
entailed on the College. The Deans having failed to
lecture diligently, two of the younger M.A.s were
appointed to read Philosophy Lectures to Bachelors and
senior students. There was a Greek Lecture daily,
THE TIMES OF GREAT ELIZABETH 63
and Hebrew Lectures for divinity students. The
Provost himself read a Divinity Lecture three times
a week at morning prayers in Chapel ; and every
Thursday, between 4 and 5 P.M., one of the clerical
Fellows catechised, the whole College being obliged to
attend.
It would be interesting, if it were possible, to ascer-
tain how the undergraduates employed their time when
left to themselves. Perhaps something may be inferred
as to their habits from the list of prohibitions which we
find in a compendium issued by Goad, as Vice-Chan-
cellor, in 1595. The "hurtful and unscholarly exer-
cise 1 ' of football was forbidden except within each
College and between members of the same College.
Students were forbidden to keep a dog within College
or without, or to resort to bull-baiting, bear-baiting,
common bathing-places, &c. ; to carry guns, cross-bows,
or to shoot in Cambridge or out of it. No student was
to wear long or curled locks, great cuffs, velvet breeches,
or any other coloured apparel, but their caps, hoods and
habits. Bachelors and undergraduates were forbidden
to cover their heads at sermons. The objection to
bathing strikes us as particularly strange, and it was
one of the Provost's earliest enactments. For there is a
College order of 1571 forbidding all members of the
College, including servants and Choristers, to enter any
stream, pool, or water, within the county of Cambridge,
for the purpose of swimming or bathing, either by day
or night. The penalty for a first offence was a severe
flogging in Hall in the presence of the whole Society ;
while seniors, who broke this law, sat in the stocks in
Hall for a day. A second offence entailed expulsion.
64 KING'S COLLEGE
It had so happened that a very promising son of Walter
Haddon, admitted to the College in 1567, had been
drowned while " washing himself in a Place in the river
Cham called Paradise " ; and this accident may in some
measure account for the severity of the new rule.
Mr. Mullinger, however, observes that the river did
possess considerable attractions, though of a kind
differing from those of the present day. The fishing
belonged to the town ; but the members of the Univer-
sity seem to have been shameless poachers ; and perch
and pike were freely caught and eaten. They even
went so far as to break the nets of the men to whom
the Corporation had leased the right of fishing, and to
drive them out of their boats. The prohibition of
fierce birds within the College perhaps indicates that
the students were given to hawking as well as fishing.
Mr. Wordsworth thinks that undergraduates enjoyed
about as much liberty as public-school boys now do.
They had to attend morning and evening prayer in
Chapel, as well as early dinner and supper in Hall.
Their dormitories were not altogether private. In
King^s College the Scholars and young Fellows were
quartered in chambers, each of which accommodated
four inmates, and bore some distinctive name, such as
" The Tolebothe," " Horakeeper's Inn," " Barber's Inn,"
&c. The Fellows 1 chambers held two instead of four
beds. Something like bullying seems occasionally to
have gone on within these chambers; for in 1624 a
B. A. was accused of maltreating " et verbis et pugnis "
a M.A. Fellow " in propria ipsius camera et lecto exis-
tentem." Of course the appeal to the fist was more
common in those days; one Scholar, in 1590, is in
THE TIMES OF GREAT ELIZABETH 65
trouble " pro percussione enormi Jacob! Scarlett
Chorustae " ; and there is more than one instance of an
undergraduate dealing in the same way with one of
the butlers. But the offences detailed in the College
Records are for the most part slight. Absence without
leave from Chapel or from College, indecorous dress,
quarrelsome conduct, impertinence or disobedience to
the authorities were common enough ; and sometimes a
Fellow would take advantage of a sermon at St. Mary's,
or an exercise in the Chapel, to speak disrespectfully
of his College officers. But there are periods during
which there is no sign even of the most trivial mis-
demeanours.
A change had, moreover, taken place in the class of
students who resorted to Colleges ; they were no longer
universally poor. Rich men's sons, if they had come to
the University at all, had formerly frequented hostels ;
but the comforts of College life had now induced many
of them to become members of Colleges ; and the
introduction of such a class would naturally tend to a
demand for greater liberty and more amusement. To
a certain extent this would be counteracted by the age
of the students, which was still that of schoolboys
rather than undergraduates. It may be doubted, how-
ever, whether this social change had greatly affected
King's College; the class who passed from Eton to
King's probably remained much the same as before, and
the age at which they came to College continued, as in
the earliest days, to vary from 15 to 19.
But, besides the Fellows and Scholars, there was in
the College a small but important body of Fellow-
Commoners. Their number, which depended on the
66 KING'S COLLEGE
accommodation in certain chambers assigned to them,
was never to exceed twelve. Strict rules were made in
1577 and 1578, by which the Tutor was made respon-
sible for a Fellow-Commoner's dues to the College, and
was liable (together with his pupil) to be put out of
Commons if he failed to pay the Bursar. Only those
were admitted Fellow-Commoners who on examination
were found fit for " logique," according to the Univer-
sity Statutes. They began by giving a silver cup of four
marks 1 price, which they used themselves in Hall, but
which afterwards became the property of the College.
At dinner and supper they took their places after the
Masters and Bachelors ; in Chapel they sat in the
lower stalls next beneath (i.e., immediately to the east
of) the Choir. At Christmas 1598 there were six
Fellow-Commoners, and two who are called Scholar-
Commoners. This last was a position which a boy
elected to a Scholarship from Eton would sometimes
hold while waiting for an actual vacancy in the Scholar-
ships ; but it seems clear that most of the Scholar-
Commoners corresponded to the Pensioners of the
present day. At Eton, in the same way, the original
Commensales were either of the Fellow-Commoner
class, and dined in Hall at the second table with the
Chaplains, Usher, and Clerks ; or else took their meals,
at a lower tariff, with the College boys. But, whereas
at Eton this last class grew into the hundreds of Oppi-
dans, at KingX on the other hand, the Scholar-Com-
moners, for whom it must always have been difficult to
find room within the College buildings, do not seem
to have lasted beyond the close of the seventeenth
centurv.
THE TIMES OF GREAT ELIZABETH 67
From the list of 1598 it appears that, besides the
regular number of Deans and Bursars, there were four
Lecturers ; the Greek Lecturer, Miles Raven, being also
a Student of Astronomy. There were two students in
law and one in medicine. The rest of the Society was
occupied with theology or arts ; but so young were the
members, that out of seventy as many as twenty-three
were still B.A.s, and the same number undergraduates.
The oldest Fellow, who was also Vice-Provost, had come
up from Eton in 1577, eight years after the election to
the Provostship of Roger Goad, who must have seemed
a patriarch to those over whom he presided.
About the time of Goad's election an important
exchange had been made in the College property. The
Manor of Withy ham, in Sussex, had been made over
to Lord Buckhurst, and the College had acquired in its
stead the Manor of Sampford Courtenay, in the heart
of Devonshire. The new property was the most dis-
tant, and almost the largest which the College now
owned. The College had not been in possession for
many years before pressure was put on them to grant a
lease of it to the Queen. The Fellows were inclined to
give way, but the Provost stood firm. This was not a
solitary instance. A few years before, the College had
found it necessary to write to Lord Burghley, the
Chancellor, begging him to use his influence with the
Queen, to excuse them from leasing the Rectory of
Barton to one Skinner. They urged that they had
already promised to let part of the tithes to an old
Kingsman, who had done special services to the College,
and part to a present member who was about to quit
the University. Moreover, they felt bound to add
68 KING'S COLLEGE
something to the stipend of the Vicar, so that the
parish might enjoy a resident Minister " qui et moribus
suis ad virtutem et doctrina sua ad religionem plebecu-
lam Bartonensem adhortari possit." Ten or twelve
years before this they had given the Queen and Chan-
cellor a different reason for not granting a lease to a
member of the Carey family. In this case the farm
was said to be one out of which exceptional profits
could be made, and without such extraordinary receipts
it was impossible for the College to pay its way. A
Tudor Sovereign like Elizabeth, whose father had con-
fiscated ecclesiastical property without shame, was not
likely to feel any scruple in trying to make a little
profit out of Colleges, either for herself or her friends ;
but it is more remarkable that the College saw no harm
in doing a good turn to individual Fellows or ex-Fellows
at the cost of the common purse.
We must now turn to the College dissensions which
unfortunately mark the history of Goad's Provostship.
Their origin is obscure. One naturally suspects, in
those days, some difference in religious doctrine or
discipline, but there is little or no trace of this in the
records which have come down to us. Perhaps the
previous anarchy obliged the Provost to exert a strict-
ness which made him unpopular ; and the youth of the
Fellows, which has been already mentioned, might
induce them to be turbulent, while it would make it
more difficult for them to appreciate the views of one
so -much their senior. This is the explanation which
Fuller gives :
" no wonder," he writes, "young Scholars swelled against
him, who bound them hard to the observation of the
THE TIMES OF GREAT ELIZABETH 69
Statutes. He had many contests with the young Fire of
this College, chiefly because he loved their good, better
than they themselves."
We shall see, too, that the pressure of poverty, or at
least a desire for a larger share in the receipts of the
College, had something to do with the troubles.
These began in 1576, when four Fellows preferred
articles against their Provost, which the Visitor (Bishop
Cooper) declined to entertain. He wrote to Lord
Burghley to this effect, whereupon the Chancellor him-
self took up the matter, and pronounced the charges to
be false and scandalous. Two of the four complainants
were imprisoned in the Gatehouse at Westminster, and
the apologies which they made are still extant. The
charges had turned chiefly on supposed peculations, and
Latin libels had been posted on the door of the Lodge,
imputing such faults to Goad. But some of the accu-
sations were evidently of a more frivolous kind, to judge
by the Provost's answers. He justifies himself for
having a wife at the Lodge, and says she has never
twice been within the " Quadrant " of the College. He
had not dined in Hall on Easter Day, and it was said
that he meant to absent himself from Hall on all
festivals ; his answer is, that he had been requested by
the Vice-Chancellor to preach at St. Mary's; and it
may be inferred that he stayed at home to write, or
think over his sermon. He was also accused of exces-
sive riding ; but he naturally asks, why should he not
use the " geldings " which the College kept for him ?
Fault was found because a new dove-house had brought
no profit to the College ; he replies that, " thei which
70 KING'S COLLEGE
have eni experience know it must have a time to be
stored, being but lately buylt." Even Burghley may
have found it difficult to hear such charges with
gravity, especially if he was told of a certain Mr. Lakys,
who joined the four ringleaders in their mutiny. The
Provost had punished him with a week's loss of com-
mons for wearing next under his gown a
" cut taffety doublet of the fashion with the sleeves out,
and a great payer of gallygastion hose. And yet this pun-
ishment hath ever sence stuk in his mynd, as hath appeared
by his sundry expostulacions with me about that matter ;
such is his stout nature and impatience to be reproved when
he doth amisse."
There was, however, one of the four complainants
who, if we may judge by his later career, was not likely
to bring absolutely trivial accusations. This was Giles
Fletcher, and in his apology of May 22, 1576, made to
the Chancellor, he still maintains that he had seen the
most promising students neglected and spoiled by bad
examples, while the idle and profligate escaped punish-
ment ; though he admits that the Provost himself is an
excellent man, and, if he would trust to his own judg-
ment, perfectly fair. Fletcher's real complaint seems,
therefore, to have been against the officers of the
College who had misled the Provost, and whose influence
had caused misgovernment. Another of the four, and
a much less respectable witness, was Robert Lilesse,
who was not content with making mischief within his
own College, but having libelled some M.A. was, in
1583, summoned before the Vice-Chancellor and Heads,
and banished for ever from the University. This
THE TIMES OF GREAT ELIZABETH 71
expulsion entailed the loss of his Fellowship, and ten
years afterwards he induced the Chancellor to take
some steps for his restoration. The question was
referred to the Visitor, who writes to Lord Burghley
from Buckden, Sept. 27, 1594, that he found Robert
Lilesse undeserving of restoration, and begs Lord
Burghley to ^vithdraw from his encouragement, with
the hope and confidence of which Lilesse " began to be
swoln and puffed up."
By this time, i.e., in 1594, the old dissensions had
reappeared in the College in an aggravated form ; and
the Visitor, Bishop Wickham, writing to Lord Burghley,
speaks of his sorrow at finding on a visit to Cambridge
" most strange insolencies and immodesties far different
from the ancient reverence and humility towards their
superiors." In December of this same year he read to
the College a memorandum containing orders for the
better management of public meetings, for securing a
due distinction between Seniors and Juniors (the new
Parlour and Laundress Yard being reserved for the use
of the former), and for preventing the habit of discuss-
ing the private affairs of the College before strangers.
Some of the Fellows had not confined themselves to
dangerous language. They had even snatched money
from the Bursars, and laid hands on bread and beer at
the Buttery. Six or seven had taken horses violently
out of the stable and ridden them abroad at their
pleasure.
This was the last effort of Bishop Wickham as a
peacemaker, for he was translated to the See of
Winchester the next year and died within a few
months. He had once been a Fellow both of King's
72 KING'S COLLEGE
i
and Eton. Sir John Harington tells us that, as Vice-
Provost of Eton, he would teach the School in the
Headmaster's absence, and that he shewed a fatherly
care of the boys. He was
" a very milde and good natured man, and esteemed a very
good Preacher, and free from that which St. Paul calleth
Idolatry, I mean covetousness ; so that one may say
probably, that as the first William Wykeham was one of
the richest Prelates that had been in Winchester a long
time and bestowed it well, so this was one of the poorest
and endured it well."
His charity was in advance of his generation ; for when
he preached at the funeral of Mary Queen of Scots,
Martin Marprelate taunted him with having expressed
a hope that his auditors might hereafter meet the de-
parted Queen, "an unrepentant Papist, 11 in heaven.
Such a man was not likely to use his Visitatorial powers
with undue harshness, and perhaps a firmer hand and
the adoption of more stringent measures might have
averted the serious outbreak, which must be described
in the next chapter.
CHAPTER VI
THE LAST DAYS OF ROGER GOAD
Ix the spring of 1602 civil war again broke out in the
College. The Fellows were dissatisfied both with the
management of the College property and with their
own share in the profits. They complained that they
received only ^3 15s. a year apiece ; many of them
not having a penny besides for apparel, books, &c.
From this discontent a custom had arisen of attaching
some condition to their votes at the sealing of leases,
so as to intercept part of the fines paid by the tenants,
which would otherwise have gone into the Common
Purse. It was, in fact, a movement, irregular and un-
constitutional in character, towards the modern system
of dividends.
The Provost, at a meeting in February of this year,
gave notice that he would not allow any Fellow hence-
forward to give " a conditional or ambiguous voice " ;
but several such votes were immediately given, and on
the same day thirty Fellows petitioned their Visitor to
reconsider an interpretation of the 46th Statute, which
Bishop Wickham had made. This was to the effect
that on all important questions the whole body of
Fellows must be summoned ; and that, if they were not
unanimous on any matter, it should be settled by a
74 KING'S COLLEGE
majority of the thirteen Senior Fellows. The Junior
party would have accepted this decision if, in the
absence of any of the thirteen, the next in seniority
had been summoned to the final decision ; but the late
Visitor's words had made it clear that this was not to
be done, so that the Provost and seven others might
conceivably impose their will on the whole Society,
without even hearing arguments on the other side.
The petition was rejected, and in May of the following
year, 1603, the Provost and Seniors themselves asked
the Visitor, Bishop Chaderton, to intervene, and urged
that there was a kind of mutiny among the younger
Fellows. A visitation immediately followed, with the
usual forms of " articles of inquiry " and " present-
ments."
It was evident that the desire for a dividend lay at
the root of the quarrel. To this the Provost and
Seniors reply :
" As for the surplusage remaining in the year's end there
is some competent quantity left in the charge of the Baker
and Bruer. But as for other surplusage to be divided (as
divers of the company have dreamed they might have) the
truth is, this is so fair of, that the College runneth more
and more in great detryments yearly above Statute allow-
ance ... to the sum, of late years, of iieer 300 per
annum . . . which intolerable burthen, as it increaseth
yearly, so it had great need be provided for in time, or
else it will prove a Canker consuming and eating out the
Bowells of this College."
Accordingly they request the Visitor's "effectual
help, 11 and complain that the more part of the company,
THE LAST DAYS OF ROGER GOAD 75
instead of practising frugality, have broken out into
open dissension for their dividend.
The Provost had also several charges to prefer against
individual Fellows. One had made an offensive oration
in the public schools, aimed at the present state and
government of the College; another had used his
sermon at St. Mary's for the same purpose ; a third had
presumed to come to meals in Hall when he had been
put out of commons. A fourth "has a scandalous
report for his trade of usury." Three Fellows had used
"unlawful gaming," even drawing some of the young
Bachelors to play with them, and had frequented a
house in the town for the purpose of card playing, not
without a suspicion of more serious immorality. One
Fellow, a Mr. Hinde, having received a legacy of %0 a
year, persisted in retaining his Fellowship.
Within a few days the Visitor called the Society into
the Chapel and delivered an address. While some
points were reserved for future consideration, he pro-
ceeded to inflict penalties on the chief offenders without
delay. Presently he called forth three Fellows, Wood-
yere, Saunders, and Hinde, as idle misspenders of their
time and non-proficient in their studies, and discom-
muned them "usque ad condignam emendacionem."
This was more than the mutineers could bear. Wood-
yere said, " We do appeal to the King," and this cry
was taken up clamorously by many others. The
Provost reminded them that such an appeal was
contrary to their oaths, but they persisted. Some of
them
" took exceptions against my Lord of Lincoln as a partiall
and suspected Judge, for being a mere friend to Mr.
76 KING'S COLLEGE
Provost, for admitting him to sit as assistant in examina-
tions, and for treating of the lesser matters and omitting
the weightier."
Woodyere followed this up by challenging the Provost
openly for alienating the College lands, and for retaining
farmers' money for the space of nineteen years. Another
Fellow, Griffin, joined Woodyere in exclaiming against
the Provost for oppression and injustice. It was a
scene of wild confusion, and the Bishop was hardly
equal to the emergency. Eventually, " being therewith
very much disquieted," and not being able to restore
order even by offering to respite the punishments, he
left his seat and departed.
It was probably on the next day that the Provost
and Seniors determined to send a petition to the Privy
Council, and in particular to warn the Archbishop of
Canterbury and Mr. Secretary Cecil, that the younger
Fellows were on the point of appealing to the King.
The Juniors, however, were determined to be beforehand
in getting the ear of the authorities in London. So,
rising at 4 A.M. on May 9, they went to the College
stables, overpowered or intimidated the stable-boy, and
violently took out
" two College geldings, which Mr. Provost should have
used to London the same day, taking them against Mr.
Provost's prohibition, alledging that they had a warrant
from the more part of the Fellows."
Lisle and Griffin were the two who rode off to London
to transact their business ; and on their return, which
seems not to have been till June, they added insult to
injury by presenting their bill of charges to the
THE LAST DAYS OF ROGER GOAD 77
Provost, and claiming that it should be paid as College
business.
It must have been an uncomfortable summer at
King^s ; but, to make matters worse, a new controversy
arose in August. A frequent but unwelcome visitor,
the Plague, had appeared in Cambridge ; and the Pro-
vost and Seniors decided, on the 13th, that the College
should break up till November 1 ; each Fellow receiv-
ing 2s. 8d. per week, and each Scholar 2s., in lieu of
commons. This decision was confirmed by the Visitor,
who sent Commissioners to the College on August 19
to announce the fact. Then there ensued in the Chapel
a second edition of the tumult of May 7, with cries of
" There is no authority nor Statute to drive us from
the College, and we will not go but withstand it."
Between twenty and thirty of them, one being
Samuel Collins, the future Provost, appealed to the
Visitor, urging, among other pleas, that " We are many
poor, many orphans, and friendless, many Londoners,
and know not whither to go but into places still more
dangerous." Of course the Provost also wrote to assure
the Visitor that the danger was serious, and he com-
plained of fresh misconduct on the part of Lisle, which
occurred under the following circumstances : The
Electors at Eton, considering Hinde's Fellowship as
vacant, had announced and filled up seven vacancies.
On August25 there was a meeting in the Hall to admit
the new Scholars, when Lisle behaved so turbulently
that the Provost retired to the Lodge to complete the
business. Nor was Lisle's language more conciliatory
than his conduct ; for when one of the Seniors asked
him what authority he had for disbelieving the Provost,
78 KING'S COLLEGE
who affirmed that there were seven vacancies, he
answered, " What if Mr. Provost say it is night, when
I see the sunshine at noonday, am I bound to believe
it ? "
Some of the younger Fellows, in spite of College
orders, and although most of them had already received
their money allowance in lieu of commons, persisted in
remaining in residence till the end of August, taking
their meals in the Hall, and bread and drink at their
pleasure out of the Buttery ; so disturbing the Seniors
that the latter " were fain to withdraw themselves and
take their dyett in the Provost's lodging.""
After this the College seems really to have been
broken up for a time, and towards the end of October
the Provost and Seniors found it necessary to extend
the period till January 13, that being the day fixed by
the University, and the King having given strict orders
to the County Justices to avoid all occasions of spread-
ing the contagion.
The new notice had probably not reached all whom
it concerned. At any rate some returned to College,
and the Provost called them to the " Wainscot Hall "
in the Lodge on November 3 ; and, after objecting to
the presence of Mr. Hinde as being no Fellow, ex-
plained to them the necessity of obeying the order,
confirmed by the Visitor, to be absent till January ;
and he offered to pay the travelling expenses of any
who had come back in ignorance. However, Messrs.
Sheaf, Griffin, and Woodyere insisted on their right to
remain ; and Woodyere said that, as the Provost had
lately dined at an inn with the Vice-Chancellor and
Proctors, and also kept his family in College, there
THE LAST DAYS OF ROGER GOAD 79
could be no great danger of infection. The meeting
was now becoming disorderly, and the Provost had to
retire into the next room, and
" so entring the door, which he would have pulled after
him, Mr. Sheaff laid hould thereupon to keep it open, to
what end is not known, but to have followed him in with
his trayne, had not the auditor Mr. Brooks been sitting
apparent and to be seen."
The presence of the Auditor may have been a momen-
tary check to bad manners, but the Audit itself gave
the malcontents some further opportunities of dis-
tinguishing themselves ; especially to Hinde, who
intruded into meetings, and presumed, in preference
of his claim to commons money, to set upon Mr.
Raven, one of the Bursars,
" mistrusting no such matter, in his own chamber, and
violently throwing him down on the floore drew out his
knife and cutt of the bottom of a bagge, which he held fast
in his hand, with the College money in it, and took
thereof the sum of 27 shillings."
Things had now reached such a pitch that King
James thought it time to interpose. A Stuart King
was not likely to regard with favour any movement
against authority, and he wrote to the Bishop of Lin-
coln to say that he was shocked by the state of things.
" We have some reason to impute part of these con-
tinued disorders to your sufferance and remissness."
The Bishop is charged to visit the College and to take
strong measures, reporting offenders to the Council if
necessary ; these dissensions having " caused great
scandal and evil example to the whole University."
80 KING'S COLLEGE
The Bishop accordingly held another visitation in
the Chapel on January 25, 1604 ; but the rebels de-
clined to give way, declaring that the King had been
misled, and appealing "from the King misinformed to
the King better informed. 1 ' At the same time John
Griffin and William Woodyere did not lose the oppor-
tunity offered by the Bishop's visit to drive home their
countercharges. If there was a weak joint in the
Provost's armour, it was in his management of the
property, and here Griffin and his partner directed
their main attack. That the Provost had left off going
on circuit might be excused on the score of his age ;
but he had persuaded the Society to buy a farm at
Coton, which he promised would bring in 80 a year ;
and the purchase had turned out a bad bargain. More
serious than this misjudgment was the fact that for
twelve years he had kept in his own hands a farm at
Grant Chester, paying the College the old rent for it,
though it was now worth much more. A former
Visitor had told him that he ought either to take a
fresh lease for it or let it to others. But this direction
had been ignored. It was not the first time that the
Provost had been accused of feathering his own nest.
When Queen Elizabeth had applied for the lease of
Sampford Courtenay, it was said that the Provost " had
the commodities for fines of copyholders to himself,"
and that this was the real reason why the application
was refused. If there was any truth in this story,
it must mean that some percentage of the fines was
retained by the Provost; and the fact that such a
story could be told may perhaps throw some light
on his conduct in the case of the Grantchester Farm.
THE LAST DAYS OF ROGER GOAD 81
Scrupulous delicacy in money matters does not seem to
have been a common virtue in the Elizabethan age.
The Bachelors of the College had also grievances to
present to the Visitor. The Provost and Vice-Provost
are accused of favouritism in assigning chambers. The
complainants averred that they were discouraged from
all familiarity with their elders ; that they were strictly
obliged to wear caps within the College, and that in all
weathers, and before any company, they must " cap " a
M.A., even if he is at the farthest end of the court.
They can never take their commons out of Hall as
others do ; and they are expected to be in their rooms
from 8 to 9 P.M., to receive visits from the Deans, and
have sometimes thereby missed a Hebrew Lecture. In
modern days the visit is generally paid by the person
in statu pupillary and the loss of a lecture would pro-
bably not be urged as an aggravation of the burden.
But the end of the civil war was at last in sight, for
on Feb. 9 the whole body of Fellows joined in a petition
to the Visitor " for peace, 11 asking him to compose all
differences, and promising to pursue an inviolable peace
with the Head and members of the Society. On the
following day the Visitor delivered a series of injunc-
tions, many of which were repeated or amplified at
a visitation held six years later, in October 1610,
under the title of " Articles of good husbandrie " and
" Reformation of manners."
The attempt of the Juniors to have a place on the
Seniority, or to attach conditions to their votes, was
repudiated. All were ordered to dine and sup regularly
in Hall, except by special leave of the Vice-Provost;
the habit of taking commons out of Hall having helped
82 KING'S COLLEGE
to create faction and dissension. Still less might men
carry their commons into the town, a practice which
had caused the loss of College Plate. A Fellow might,
however, still bring a friend to the Buttery hatch " in
moderate sorte," to refresh themselves. The fact that
Latin is still to be spoken in Hall, and that servants
are to take their commons there, reminds us that we
are hardly yet out of mediaeval times. While such
measures were ordered to promote economy or unity,
others aimed at the development of the College estates.
Two yearly circuits are enjoined. Inquiry is to be
made as to the management of woods, and competent
legal advice to be taken on the still more serious
question of granting copyholds. And here the advice
of Mr. John Lowe, of the Inner Temple, confirmed the
College in its traditional practice, and emphatically
condemned the notion of converting copyhold into
leasehold tenures. His view was that, if such a policy
were adopted, the tenements and lands would be in
such a deplorable state before the copyholds fell in,
that the College would find no tenants. And if the
College would gain nothing, society in general would
certainly be injured; the depopulation of the country
which would result from ousting the copyholders would
be a national loss ; and there would be much distress,
begging, and vagrancy among the ejected families.
The Visitor's injunctions also provided for greater
regularity in lectures and exercises, it being the duty of
the "Presidents of Lower Chambers" to superintend
the studies of the Scholars who inhabited them, and to
take care that there were no "non-proficients." Idle
Fellows and Scholars were to be punished and reformed,
THE LAST DAYS OF ROGER GOAD 83
and none to be allowed to practise merchandising or
other trading. No one was to frequent taverns. Those
who came in after the keys had been carried to the
Provost were to be mulcted or discommuned. Cards
and all gaming were forbidden. Only the thirteen
Seniors might use the Seniors 1 Parlour, Orchard, or
Garden; and so far from granting any relief to the
Juniors in respect of their head-dress, the Visitor
ordered all Bachelors and Scholars to take off their caps
to M. A.s in the Chapel yard and walks, not putting them
on till they had leave ; and not to wear caps at all in
the presence of any M. A. Fellow within the Inner Court.
Such was the general settlement. But the hand of
justice fell heavily on individual offenders. John
Griffin and William Woodyere were ejected from their
Fellowships by the Visitor at once. Lisle escaped for
the moment, but four years later was declared by the
Provost to have forfeited his Fellowship by being in
possession of a Manor at Great Wilbraham worth more
than ^5 a year. As for Edmund Hinde, his case had
already been heard, on July 12, 1603, by the Provost
and officers. It was found that he had inherited a
"faire Inn near Holborne Bridge" called the Queen's
Arms, the annual value of which was more than ^?5;
and though Hinde fenced with the questions put to
him and tried to evade any admissions fatal to his
cause, the evidence was too strong; he was ejected, and
the decision was ratified by the Visitor on Jan. 30,
1604. One Henry Howgrave also got into trouble for
insulting the Provost. A report had arisen that Goad
was to be made Dean of Windsor, on which Howgrave
remarked that Mr. Provost had been a thief all his life,
84, KING'S COLLEGE
and would now be a Dean of thieves. Howgrave's own
account of the conversation gave it rather a different
colour ; but he was discommuned, and had to make an
apology. He was probably an extreme Puritan, for a
few years later he was again punished for libellous
language against the Bishops, and for calling Arch-
bishop Bancroft " Antichrist. 11
The last event recorded in Roger Goad's long reign
indicates that the disorders of King's College had
infected other Colleges also. A comedy was being
acted before a distinguished company in the Hall on
February 28, 1606. Stones were thrown at the Hall
windows, a crowd of Scholars and others hooted and
shouted for two hours ; windows were broken, and a
post of timber was pulled up and used as a battering-
ram to break a strong gate. The Vice- Chancellor and
Heads made order that any one convicted of having
taken part in the riot should have his degrees suspended,
or be corrected with the rod in the Schools, or (if a
townsman) be put in the stocks in the bull-ring.
One cannot but regret that the closing years of
Provost Goad's rule, which in the opinion of so great
an authority as Mr. Mullinger " was attended with the
utmost advantage and credit to his College and the
University," should have been darkened by the long
and acrimonious dissensions which have been described.
In spite of this, however, no Fellowships were more
prized than those at King's, whether for their value or
their social advantages. Music, rather than theology,
is said to have been the favourite study of the Fellows.
The practice of music, however, did not, in this case,
produce either harmony or unison.
THE LAST DAYS OF ROGER GOAD 85
The worth of a College must be judged in no small
degree by the character of the men whom it sends into
the world outside, and there was no lack of prominent
Kingsmen during Elizabeth's reign. In Church and
State alike they did good service. Mitres were, no
doubt, plentiful at the opening of this era ; but still it
is remarkable that within one year Archbishop Parker
consecrated three Kingsmen. Of these, Cox has been
already described. Edmund Guest, who became Bishop
of Rochester, had a large share in the Revision of the
Prayer Book in 1559, and in framing the Thirty-nine
Articles ; unlike Cox, he seems to have leant towards
Luther's view of the Eucharist, and he was unlike him
also in dying poor and unmarried. William Alley,
who during Mary's reign had supported himself by
practising medicine in Northern England, now became
Bishop of Exeter, and took part in the translation of
the Bible in 1561. A generation, however, passed
before another such appointment was made, for it
was not till 1595 that William Day became Bishop of
Winchester. His elder brother, also a Kingsman, had
been Bishop of Chichester and was a staunch Romanizer.
William adopted quite opposite views, and rose to be
Provost of Eton in 1561, where he lost no time in
pulling down a tabernacle of stone in the body of the
church and in whitening Dr. Lupton's chapel. In his
exercise of patronage he does not seem to have been so
much of a Puritan, for when on one occasion he
broke his leg, by a fall from a horse that started under
him, some waggish Scholars observed that it was a just
punishment, because the horse was given him by a
gentleman to place his son at Eton. It may be hoped,
86 KING'S COLLEGE
however, that the present was made as a token of the
father's gratitude, and after the boy's admission to
College.
But the most eminent Kingsman of this reign was
Francis Walsingham, who, after an education at his own
home near Chislehurst, entered King's as a Fellow-
Commoner in 1548. There he resided during parts of
two years, under the care of Thomas Gardiner, one of
the Fellows. He did not stay to take a degree, but
travelled on the Continent, where, by making himself
master of foreign languages and customs, he fitted him-
self for the important parts which he afterwards played
both as a diplomatist and a Minister. He did not
forget his old College, although the connexion had
been so short, but presented the Library with a copy
of the Antwerp Polyglott of 1569-73. To the College
lately founded by his brother-in-law, Sir Walter Mild-
may, he made the more substantial gift of the Advow-
son of Thurcaston in Leicestershire. Perhaps he felt
more confidence in the Protestant character of Emmanuel
theology, or he may have thought that his own College
was already sufficiently endowed with livings.
Another notable servant of the State was Thomas
Wilson, who was Tutor at King's to the two brothers
Henry and Charles Brandon. As relations of the royal
family they might have been useful patrons to Wilson
in after life ; but unhappily the two lads, while under-
graduates, were attacked by the sweating sickness.
They were hastily removed to the Bishop of Lincoln's
Palace at Buckden, but died within twelve hours of
each other. Both of the Brandons had attained a
remarkable proficiency in learning; and Peter Martyr
THE LAST DAYS OF ROGER GOAD 87
considered the elder to be the most promising youth
of his day, with the exception of Edward VI. During
Mary's reign Wilson studied civil law at Padua and
Ferrara, but he was imprisoned at Rome on a charge
of heresy, and only escaped when the prison took fire
and the populace broke open the doors. Tradition
says that for some time Wilson tried in vain to get
employment from Lord Burghley. At last Elizabeth,
wishing to animate her subjects against Philip of
Spain, inquired for some one who could translate the
Philippics of Demosthenes, and Wilson was chosen for
the purpose. The story must be legendary, for before
this time Wilson was Master of St. Catharine's Hospital,
M.P. in 1563, and Ambassador in Portugal in 1567;
but it is true that a translation of the Philippics by him
was printed in 1570. However, Wilson's literary fame
rests on two earlier works, the Rule of Reason and Arte
of Rhetorique, both of them very able and witty
treatises, which were popular in the sixteenth century.
In the Rhetorique he tells, or perhaps invents, a story
of his own early days : ,
"When I was in Cambridge and student in the King's
College, there came a man out of the town with a pint of
wine in a pottle pot, to welcome the Provost of that
House, lately come from Court."
The speech that was made by the man is quoted by
Wilson as an example of the absurd misuse of long
words. It begins quite in Dogberry's vein :
" Knowing that you are a worshipful Pilate, and keeps a
bominable house, I thought it my duty to come incanti-
vantee, and bring you a pottle of wine."
88 KING'S COLLEGE
Wilson afterwards became a Secretary of State, and
was employed by Elizabeth both in the Low Countries
and also to investigate the Queen of Scots 1 connexion
with the Duke of Norfolk's plot.
Success came still earlier in life to Bartholomew Clark,
made Dean of Arches before he was 36 years of age.
The Earl of Leicester, who for some reason was his
enemy, tried to oust him from his place on the ground
of his youth; and it must have seemed to Clark a just
retribution when he was employed on a mission to the
Low Countries to inquire into the charges made against
the EarPs government there. He had a friend in Lord
Buckhurst, who encouraged him to write the History of
Queen Elizabeth. This he did not do, but he wrote
an answer to Sandars, who had attacked both the
English Church and the right of Elizabeth to the
throne. Clark was an Italian and a French scholar, so
proficient in the latter tongue, that he was offered a
Readership at Angers.
Sir John Harington is one of the most picturesque
figures of these times. His father and mother had
been fellow prisoners with Elizabeth in the Tower in
1554, and he himself was the Queen's godson. Haring-
ton entered King^s as a Fellow-Commoner in 1576, and
he speaks of "My learned Tutor Dr. Fleming," the
same person, doubtless, who disputed before Lord
Leicester in 1578, and who died in his pulpit at
Cottenham Church in 1620. In his tastes and abilities
Harington may perhaps remind us of a better known
Kingsman of the eighteenth century, Horace Walpole.
Like him, Harington was fond of society, and a
favourite in it; a great gossip, and a lively letter-
THE LAST DAYS OF ROGER GOAD 89
writer. But Walpole's vanity never betrayed him into
the indiscreet actions which mark the career of the
Somersetshire squire. Harington was an Italian scholar,
and translated part of the Orlando Furioso, and the trans-
lation was circulated at Court. Elizabeth reproved her
" saucy poet " for corrupting the minds of her maids of
honour, but, with characteristic inconsistency, con-
demned him to translate the rest of the poem. Her
poet's improprieties might have been pardoned if in
one of his writings he had not appeared to reflect on
the Earl of Leicester; he was thereupon ordered to
leave the Court till he " had grown sober."" This he
can hardly be said ever to have achieved, for besides
being implicated in Essex's proceedings in Ireland he
had the audacity, in 1606, to propose himself, though a
layman, to Sir Robert Cecil as a candidate for an Irish
Archbishopric.
Harington must have been a strange medley of ill-
assorted tastes and qualities. He could write sensibly
on serious subjects, but he was capable of being both
indecent and profane. His style is generally clear and
bright, but it is disfigured by puns which would dis-
grace a schoolboy. While in Ireland with Essex he
wrote an account of the Irish campaigns which is said
to have been shewn to the Queen, contrary to the
author's wishes, and to have led to the ruin of the
unfortunate Earl. Perhaps the most interesting of his
works are the letters in which he gives a lifeline de-
scription of Elizabeth in her old age, and of James I.
soon after his accession.
Harington was no friend to the Puritans, and,
fearing that Prince Henry of Wales might be
90 KING'S COLLEGE
disposed to fulfil the prediction of the then current
couplet :
" Henry the VIIT pulled down monks and their cells,
But Henry the IX th shall pull down Bishops and bells/'
he drew up, for the Prince's instruction, biographies of
many of the Bishops since Parker's time, some of whom
he had known personally. In a letter to the same
Prince he professes to give, out of old family records,
some specimens, both of prose and verse, written by
Henry VI. These would be interesting relics if we
could trust the source whence they come. Of Haring-
ton's own epigrams the following is well known ;
" Treason doth never prosper : what's the reason ?
Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason."
Of Giles Fletcher something has been already said.
He was a lawyer of sufficient eminence to become
Chancellor of more than one diocese, but he was better
known as a diplomatist. After being employed in
Scotland and Germany, he went, in 1588, on a special
embassy to Russia, then an almost unknown country.
Here he succeeded in obtaining great concessions for
English merchants, but he was himself treated with
such indignity that Elizabeth sent a formal complaint
to the Czar. Another result of his ill-treatment was
that in 1591 he published an account of Russia so
uncomplimentary that it had to be suppressed, for fear
of the consequences to the English merchants trading
in Russia. Poetry ran in the Fletcher family, and in
the case of Giles it took the form of a Latin poem
" de Litteris antiquae Britannia?," part of which is
THE LAST DAYS OF ROGER GOAD 91
devoted to an account of Cambridge. The early
history of his own College is described in the following
lines :
" Fortunata domus nimium, si cetera primis
Aequa forent ! Musis invidit cetera Mayors.
Aspice quae moles et quae fundamina primi
Interrupta manent operis ! vix ista feruntur
Edvardi flexisse minas quin, victor ab hoste
Cum redit infestis ducens hostilia signis
Agmina, nil meritis inferret bella Camcenis,
Innocuosque furens incenderet igne Penates."
King's College has always been a nursery of school-
masters, and in this century five out of the first eight
Headmasters of St. Paul's School were Kingsmen. One
of these, William Malim, had already been Headmaster
of Eton. He had travelled in the East, and adopted
Oriental methods in dealing with boys; for he was a
great flogger, so much so that some boys ran away from
Eton, and this incident is said to have induced Roger
Ascham to write his treatise on The Scholemaster.
Another High Master of St. Paul's, Right wise,
besides composing the tragedy of Dido, acted by his
Scholars before Wolsey, was the author of those poems
of the Latin grammar, As in prcesenti and Propria qua?
maribus, which were familiar though probably not dear
to many boys of the early Victorian period.
But the greatest of the Schoolmasters seems to have
been Richard Mulcaster. It was at the newly founded
Merchant Taylors' School that he made his name ; and,
besides his Eton and Cambridge training, he had
acquired at Oxford a knowledge of Oriental languages.
92 KING'S COLLEGE
In two respects he anticipated modern ideas. He
asserted the right of girls to receive as good an
education as boys, and he advocated a system of
special training for Schoolmasters. Fuller's account of
him deserves to be repeated :
" In a morning he would exactly and plainly construe and
parse the lesson to his Scholars ; which done, he slept his
hour (custom made him critical to proportion it) in his
desk in school ; but woe be to the Scholar that slept
the while. Awaking he heard them accurately ; and
Atropos might be persuaded to pity as soon as he to
pardon, where he found just fault. The prayers of cocker-
ing mothers prevailed with him as much as the requests of
indulgent fathers, rather increasing than mitigating his
severity. His sharpness was better endured, because he
was impartial ; and many excellent Scholars were bred
under him."
One of these was Bishop Andrewes, who ever retained
a warm affection for his old master, and had his portrait
hung over his study door. Mulcaster had held office
for twenty-five years, when he determined to resign.
The Company pressed him to continue ; but his answer
was, "Fidelis servus perpetuus asinus." This did not
prevent him from undertaking the Mastership of
St. Paul's School when he was already sixty-five years
of age.
The study of mathematics was not yet a prominent
feature of Cambridge life, although the Commissioners
of 1549 had introduced it into the "Trivium" in place
of grammar, a knowledge of which was now supposed
to precede admission to the University. But one Kings-
THE LAST DAYS OF ROGER GOAD 93
man of these times is mentioned by an old College
chronicler as having "arrived at great skill in the
Mathematicks." This was Robert Dunning, who was
one of Roger Goad's first accusers, and was committed
to the Gatehouse at Westminster. There he repented,
and wrote to Lord Burghley:
" that he wondered at the Blindness of his own mind and
confessed that because he hated the Provost therefore he
had raised most false accusations against a man worthy to
be seen and heard by Princes."
His repentance seems either to have been superficial
or to have come too late, for our chronicler goes on :
" he behaved so as to be expelled. Remarkable it is ; you
seldom find men of moderate parts run into such enormous
extravagancies. Your slow dull fellows usually live longer,
behave better, and are more usefull and exemplary in their
generations, than those volatile and elevated geniuses."
CHAPTER VII
SAMUEL COLLINS
ONLY five years separate the Provostships of Roger
Goad and of the equally eminent Samuel Collins.
This short interval is filled by two Provosts, Fogge
Newton and William Smythe, both of whom gave
promise of doing good service to the Society. Newton
was son-in-law to Goad, and is described as " a most
learned, meek, and good man. 1 ' Meek as he was, he
was called upon to withstand James I. in an attempt
which the King made to secure a Fellowship for a
Scotchman. Newton wrote to explain that the College
Statutes forbade the election of any one born outside
the realm of England. Strict loyalty to the Statutes
would equally have prevented any royal interference in
the election of Scholars from Eton ; but there is evi-
dence to show that such interference was not uncommon,
as indeed we might infer from the language of the
following letter written only eighteen years later :
" WESTMINSTER PALACE.
" 10 December 1628.
" The King to the Provosts of Eton and Kings College.
"Whereas we are given to understand that one Isaa
Oliver, a student of our College at Eton, hath spent man
SAMUEL COLLINS 95
years in the course qf his studies there and is as well in
respect of his time as of his proficiency in learning very fit
to be removed to our University of Cambridge ; We have
therefore thought fit, both in regard of the industrious
expense of his time in the course of his studies as for his
better encouragement to proceed in his commendable
endeavours for the time to come, by these our letters to
desire you whom it may concern, that at the next election
of Scholars of that College you choose elect and admit him
into the first place of a Scholar of King's College in Cam-
bridge according to the usual custom of that House. And
we shall take your readiness to give us satisfaction herein
in very thankful part at your hands."
Isaac Oliver was accordingly admitted a Scholar,
though not till 1630, and proved rather an expensive
acquisition to the College, for the records tell us that
he
" went distracted and so continued above thirty years, and
which was very reasonable was allowed the full profits of
his Fellowship as if he had been resident."
It is added, however, that he was an excellent scholar,
so that perhaps he would have been admitted without
royal intervention.
But Oliver was not the only Scholar admitted in
1630 on the King's recommendation. Two years later,
a strong opposition was made by some members of the
College to the appointment of Nathaniel Vincent as
Poser; and among other objections it was urged that,
when he had served that office in 1630, he had dis-
pleased the King by refusing to elect boys on the royal
recommendation. Vincent's rival at this time was one
96 KING'S COLLEGE
Thomas Roe, and a written statement was made by the
former, to the effect that in 1630 Roe had exhorted
Vincent not to be pusillanimous, and had then accused
him to Lord Holland of resisting the King's will.
After all, Vincent's opposition was ineffectual, for in
1632 the Fellows of the College made the following
declaration :
" We may trewly say that more Schollers were expedited
at that time upon his Majestie's Commandment, wherein
hee of all Princes of the earth hath been most sparing and
moderate, than commonly are in scores of years, 4 Schollers
being contented in their desires at once, for whom his
Majestic then vouchsafed to write."
Then follow the names of Isaac Oliver and three more.
Provost Newton was Rector of Kingston in Cam-
bridgeshire, when he was made Provost ; there he died
and was buried, as his Inscription says, by his own
wish :
" Moriens, f ubi
Pro Christiano feceram excubias grege,
Hie nostra ' dixit ' ossa conquiescite.
Edoraiietis sseculi noctem brevis.' "
William Smythe then succeeded to the Provostship in
1612, and held it for three years. In this case also the
election was determined by the interference of the
Crown. James I. wrote to the College, warning them
not to act in filling the vacancy caused by Provost
Newton's death till he had ascertained " where The
Right lyeth " ; and then, being satisfied of his own
right to nominate, he bids the College to elect Smythe,
whom he (King James) had inclined to elect instead of
SAMUEL COLLINS 97
Newton, but " wee were misinformed of something con-
cerning him, which since we have found to be untrue."
The new Provost had for some time been Master of
Clare, and perhaps, if he had lived, the controversy
which presently arose between the two Colleges might
have been conducted with less acrimony. Of him it is
recorded that " he was a good housekeeper, and the loss
of him was much lamented as well by the Fellow-
Collegiates as by the College Tenants generally. 1 '
His successor, Samuel Collins, was the son of a
Kingsman, Baldwin Collins, who ended his life as
Fellow and Vice-Provost of Eton ; in which office " he
took the opportunities to prefer many poor but good
Scholars ; a man of wonderful learning and as great
humility." For himself he refused preferment, but he
went up and down " preaching gratis at one neighbour-
ing village or another almost every Sunday, as long as
health and strength of nature would permit him."" He
just lived to see his son become Provost. Samuel
inherited his father's love of learning, without the
humility. He must have been a precocious boy, if
there is any truth in the story that he was elected
" against six eminent competitors by Dr. Goad who, upon
his translating a piece of Horace, clapping his hands on his
head, said, ( This is my child, who if he lives shall be my
heir and successor.' "
This was in 1591, when Collins was only fifteen years
of age. He gained the reputation of being the best
Latinist of his days, and in 1613 he kept a celebrated
Act for his Doctor's degree, when the Elector Palatine
and Princess Elizabeth, then just married, were present,
98 KING'S COLLEGE
his opponent being Williams, afterwards Visitor of
Collins's own College as Bishop of Lincoln, and finally
Archbishop of York and Lord Keeper. " No flood,"
says Hacket,
" can be compared to the spring-tide of Collins' s language
and eloquence, but the milky river of Nilus with his seven
mouths. . . . What a Vertumnus, when he pleased to
argue on the right side or the contrary."
Four years later Collins became Regius Professor of
Divinity, and read Lectures twice a week for thirty-
four years, " wherein " (says Fuller) " never any two
alike." Yet the same authority, contrasting him with
Samuel Ward, who was the Margaret Professor, adds :
" Dr. Collins had much the speed of him in quickness of
parts, but let me say (nor doth the relation of a pupil
misguide me) the other pierced the deeper into under-
ground and profound points of divinity."
It appears that he was sometimes too ready with his
tongue ; for Hacket, who wrote the Life of the Visitor,
Bishop Williams, tells us that in 1628 on some disgust
conceived against him the Fellows petitioned the Bishop
to visit the College, who accordingly accepted the invi-
tation; but
" the cause went for the right worthy Provost, in whose
government the Bishop could perceive neither carelessness
nor covetousness. The most that appeared was that the
Doctor had pelted some of the active Fellows with slings
of wit ; at which the Visitor laughed heartily, and past
them by, knowing that the Provost's tongue could never
be wormed to spare his jests, who was the readiest alive
SAMUEL COLLINS 99
to gird whom he would with innocent and facetious
urbanity."
The Visitor did, however, make, or at least recom-
mend, a change of some importance in the administra-
tion of the College, which will be noticed in a later
chapter.
A man of Collins's disposition may have had a taste
for controversy. If so, he was able to indulge it in one
which he maintained with the Jesuits in defence of the
book which Andrewes had written against Cardinal
Bellarmine. The titles given by these combatants to
their respective pamphlets, such as Ephphatha and
Obmutesce, suggest that they did not spare each other.
Collins, however, was a scholar as well as a theologian,
and to the end of his life continued to study his
favourites, Ovid, Pindar, Cicero and Isocrates, as well as
such writers as Bembo and Politian. Unfortunately we
do not know whether he succeeded in inoculating the
members of his College with his own love of literature.
We have a pleasant picture of Provost Collins at home
in a letter from his brother Provost of Eton, Sir Henry
Wotton. Sending a portrait of Paolo Sarpi as a present,
Wotton writes :
" You have a luminous Parlour, which I have good cause
to remember, not only by delicate Fare and Freedom (the
Prince of Dishes), but by many good Authors. In that
Room,* I beseech you to allow it a favourable Place for my
sake.''
* Sarpi's portrait has unfortunately disappeared. But in the
dining-room of the present Lodge there is one of Collins himself ;
and one can easily imagine that it is the likeness of an impulsive,
self-reliant, and witty man.
100 KING'S COLLEGE
Wotton also sent to Collins a MS. of Horace, which
had once belonged to Pietro Bembo, and which is still
preserved in the College Library.
Bishop Williams was himself quite capable of appre-
ciating the Provost's wit, and his letters show that
he began his Visitorship with a high opinion of the
Provost's character. He writes in 1626 :
" I would have all men to know, I loved and respected you
extraordinarily e, for your many excellent partes, and
amongst the rest your great sweetnes and mildnes in
Governement."
And in the following year :
' ( I observed nothing in any thinge you saide or did, but
what became a man of as great a Depthe in Judgment and
Prudence as in Learninge."
A longer experience, however, and the frequency of the
appeals or petitions presented by Fellows, who thought
themselves aggrieved or the welfare of their Society
endangered, seem to have altered this favourable
opinion.
It was in May 1629 that two Fellows, Thomas Roe
and Ralph Winterton, approached the Visitor with a
complaint. Winterton wished to be allowed to " divert "
to the study of medicine; the Statutes limited the
number of such students to two ; but Roe was anxious
to give up medicine for theology, thereby creating the
necessary vacancy. This seemed to the Visitor a reason-
able arrangement, and he writes to the Provost :
" The matter is not of that moment but I maye resemble
their suyte to that of Pamphilus and Charinus in the
SAMUEL COLLINS 101
Comaedie ; the place of a Physitian is the Mistresse that
looks to be courted. And the case is this,
' Hie pavet ne ducat illam, alter autem ut ducat.'
Mr. Roe's request is full of reason, if he hath a resolution
for the Ministrie, and you and I must be no adversaries to
that resolution, if any other be willing and able to supply
the other faculty e."
He goes on to show that Winterton is excellently
qualified for the study of medicine, and it seems
impossible that
"you wold not give way of your own accord to this per-
mutation, were not somewhat concealed, under soe many
good partes, which cannot as yeat be visible. This made
me move some questions to Mr. Wynterton, from whom I
receiv'd humble and ingenuous Awnswers. And such as
persuade me, that he is your true and faythfull beadesman,
and doth runne into noe irremissible error. Et 8e n rjdtKrja-e
(re rovro ffioi eXXoyet.
The result of this letter was that the two diver-
sions were allowed on August 20, 1629. Unhappily,
further trouble soon arose in the case of both these
men. A sermon having been preached by the Vice-
Provost in Chapel on Oct. 19, 1631, which appeared to
Roe " very unseemly, tending to the breach of charity
and the dishartning of young men in their studies,"
Roe took advantage of a disputation, which he held in
the Chapel a few days afterwards, to "testifie" his
dislike of the sermon. For this "indiscreet exercise"
Roe was reprimanded; and as the Visitor would not
listen to him, he went to the Chancellor, Lord Holland,
and, according to the College account, he
102 KING'S COLLEGE
" openly protested in ye Lord of Holland's Chamber that
he neither valued King's College nor any in it more than
he did the rushes under his foote."
Lord Holland gave him no more encouragement than
the Visitor had done. But the next year he had a new
grievance. It was the custom of each of the four Senior
Fellows to keep a servitor, who waited on him and was
fed on the remains of the Hall dinner; and "your
petitioner," so Roe tells the Visitor,
" being one of the fower hath brought into the said
Colledg one Balls, a civil and studious youth, to be his poor
Scholler. . . . But Dr. Goad at this time being Dean of
Arts hath . . . warned the said Balls to be gone, and
doeth every day molest and threaten the poor boy."
The Visitor writes on this petition, that if Dr. Goad's
intention was to turn out all the four poor Scholars as
encroachers on the Foundation, he approved of such a
design; if not,
"I doe holde it reasonable that Mr. Provost doe keepe
him in possession of all privileges as his predecessor hadd.
And must suspect the justice of Dr. Goad's proceedings in
that kinde."
A more serious controversy arose when the College
in 1631 refused Winterton the degree of M.D. The
Provost and Fellows signed an explanation of their
refusal, which they sent to the Visitor. They were
aware that divers Heads of other Colleges had taken up
Winterton's cause, but declared that
" as for diverse other passages of his distempered cariage
among us, whereof happly they of other Colleges could not
SAMUEL COLLINS 103
so well take notice, conversing not so neer with him, so
especially because in our judgment he hath lived turbu-
lently and seditiously in ye College, we hold him unfitt for
that honor and unworthy of the same."
Ralph Winterton was evidently a difficult person to
live with. The College records describe him as " some-
what disordered in his senses " while an undergraduate.
And this was attributed to his intense grief at the
death of a brother in the wars abroad. But this cannot
have been the cause of his earliest eccentricities, as his
brother was one of the English volunteers in the army
of Gustavus Adolphus, and did not die before 1631,
eleven years after Winterton had become a Fellow. It
is said that ill-health and sleeplessness had first made
him study medicine ; and that he was also an excellent
Greek scholar and musician. At any rate, he was now
recognised in the University as a person of some
importance; and his treatment by the College was a
matter of general interest. This appears from a curious
letter of John Hacket to Collins, dated June 25, 1632.
Hacket was chaplain to Bishop Williams; and, while
staying at Buckden Palace for a few days, he writes to
the Provost of the general indignation caused by the
stopping of the grace for Winterton's degree, a man
" whose learning in that science, in anatomy, and in all
parts conducing to it, is most exquisite. For pittie sake,
and justice sake, good S r , let this not bee so. For what is
Mr. Winterton' s offence ? unless that he subscribed to a
Petition for ye reformation of grave abuses crept into your
most famous College, wherein he did the part of a good
Patriot."
104 KING'S COLLEGE
Hacket adds that the Visitor himself shares this
indignation :
" I have heard his Lordship call this malice, not justice ;
and thinkes ye case so worthy of his protection that if it be
not redressed, it wil make him come to King's College in a
more angry mood than hitherto he hath don, ... I hard
him say that if there were as great a tyrant Bishop of
Lincoln as you shew yourself tyrannical in your place, few
men in your College according to district justice would be
able to hold their places. ... As you tender your own
safetie let Winterton's grace pass within an hour after you
have read this letter."
Hacket was evidently much impressed with the
acuteness of the crisis, but he could hardly expect that
his last piece of advice would be taken; and the
Bishop's own letter, three days later, reveals some
irritation and impatience. He wishes the Provost
would let Mr. Winterton go and seek his fortunes as a
physician, " and for you to live quietly and peceablye
at home, and free me from these unnecessarye molesta-
tions." The business, he says, is " not worth a chippe,
unless Dr. Goad thinkes he shall be forced to take
physicke from Winterton when he is Doctor." But he
insists on knowing the names of those who refused the
grace, and that they should set down the " enormityes "
of Winterton which justified their refusal. Then he
passes on to another recent incident, which he thinks
very discreditable to the College :
" Whereas I heare of a base and unworthye question in
Divinitye, given in your College by one Mr. Vintner, that
' Ebrietas non est gravius peccatum quam schisma ' . . .
SAMUEL COLLINS 105
I pray you, Mr. Provost, lett me understand, whither you
have heard thereof, as alsoe, how he hath been punished
and the Deane who admitted and allowed of that Question.
If you have not heard of it, enquire into it, and lett them
both be suspended or otherwise punished (I mean the
partye and Moderator) untill they have in all humilitye
acknowledged their Brutishe offence."
Some time after the Visitors letter the Provost so
far gave way that he propounded to the College a grace
for the disputed degree, but it was refused by the
Fellows. Thereupon Winterton applied to the Chan-
cellor, Lord Holland, and at his mediation the matter
was at last settled. But this was not done without the
intervention of Archbishop Laud, who, finding the
Court " full of this business," wrote to the Provost on
Dec. 12, 1633, to say that Winterton's worth and
learning were very well known to him, and that there
must be no more delay.
It is evident that Winterton had made himself
unpopular in the College ; indeed he was punished
more than once, in 1631 and again in 1633, for
indecorous and rude conduct in the College Hall. But
he must have been a man of mark, for he became
Regius Professor of Physic as soon, apparently, as he
became a M.D. Perhaps his self-assertion and comba-
tiveness were among the qualities which made him a
vigorous reformer in his own Faculty. And the times
called for reform. In consequence of an outbreak of
the plague at Cambridge there had been a great
increase in the number of doctors, who, as Fuller tells
us, graduated in a clandestine way, without keeping any
Acts, " to the great disgust of those who had fairly
106 KING'S COLLEGE
gotten their degrees with public pains and expense."
Dr. Collins, as Vice-Chancellor, in admitting a man of
real ability to the Doctorate, made a distinction
between what he called the " cathedra pestilentiae " and
the "cathedra eminentiae." Winterton, during his
short tenure of the Professorship (for he died in 1636),
did his best to amend this state of things. He tells
us that hitherto any one, such as a
" serving man, an apothecary, any M. A., have had license
to practise in Physic. Some of these had also been
ordained, so that if one profession failed another might
supply them. The Minister hath neglected his own
calling and trespassed upon another's, not without en-
dangering the souls of the people of God and the loss of
the lives of many of the King's subjects/'
Henceforth, no one was to have a licence or obtain a
degree without keeping one Act at least. But little
good, so Winterton adds, would be done unless pressure
were brought to bear on Dr. Clayton, Regius Professor
at Oxford, to adopt the same rule.
A few years senior to Collins was John Lancaster,
who deserves to be remembered for his simple piety.
He is thus described by a contemporary writer:
" A very humble and self-denying man, who tho' by birth
he was a good gentleman, and had some time been Fellow
of King's College in Cambridge, where he had read sundry
public lectures, and made many speeches, and (as Dr.
Collins that master of languages used to say) delivered
himself in as pure Latin as ever Tully spoke, having no
other notes to help him but what he wrote upon his own
nails ; yet this good man thus accomplished with all
SAMUEL COLLINS 107
learning contented himself with a living not worth 4>0
per annum, and in his preaching made no noise of learning
at all. When I was young, I knew this Master Lancaster ;
he was a very little man of stature but eminent, as for
other things so especially for his living by Faith. His
wife would many times come to him, when she was to send
her maid to Banbury Market to buy provisions and tell
him she had no money. His usual answer was, ' Yet send
your maid and God will provide'; and tho' she had no
money, yet she never returned empty, for one or other
that knew her to be Mr. Lancaster's maid, either by the
way or in Banbury town, meeting her would give her
money, which still supplied their present wants."
Another country clergyman, who about this time did
honour to his College, was Phineas Fletcher, son of the
Russian traveller, Giles Fletcher. He was Rector of
Hilgay in Norfolk, and Isaac Walton's words are a
sufficient description of the life which he led there :
" There came into my mind certain verses in Praise of a
mean Estate and an humble Mind : they were written by
Phineas Fletcher, an excellent Divine and an excellent
Angler, the Author of excellent Piscatory eclogues, in
which you shall see the picture of this good man's mind."
His chief poem, which appeared in 1633, was the
Purple Island, an allegory on man's physical and mental
composition, told by a young shepherd to his mates,
" Where by the garden wall
The learned Cam with stealing water crawls
And lowly down before that royal temple falls."
Nearly half the poem is devoted to a description of
the human body. Even Lucretius himself could hardly
108 KING'S COLLEGE
have made anatomy poetical, but an occasional episode
or simile in the earlier cantos shews what Fletcher might
have done if his subject had been better chosen. When
he comes to personify the mental faculties and to de-
scribe the fight between the virtues and vices he has
more scope for his imagination. He has a passion for
antithesis, the frequent repetition of which becomes
wearisome, though some of the lines, such as his
description of the tongue :
" Mother of fairest truth and foulest lies/'
are forcible. Milton may have owed something to the
author of the Purple Island, who, at any rate, antici-
pates the great poet when he writes of the Fallen
Angels :
" In Heaven they scorned to serve, so now in Hell
they reign."
Fletcher professes to take Virgil and Spenser as his
models. In politics he was an admirer of the Earl of
Essex, and attributes Elizabeth's death to her regrets
on his account ; in theology he inclined to the Arminian
view, for he personifies the Will as " fair Voletta,"
" Whom neither man, nor fiend, nor God constrains ;
Oft good, oft ill, oft both, yet free remains."
CHAPTER VIII
THE EVE OF THE CIVIL WAR
IT was in Provost Collins's time that further progress
was made with the furniture of the Chapel. The stalls
did not, indeed, receive their canopies till after the
Restoration ; but in 1625 Thomas Weaver, a former
Fellow, gave the coats of arms carved in elmwood which
form the back of the stalls. He had already done work
of the same kind for the Chapel at Eton, of which
College he was a Fellow.
Even more important was the work undertaken at
the east end of the Chapel at King^s. What had stood
there since the removal of the High Altar in 1560 we
do not know, but now a wooden screen or reredos was
raised, on which were carved the arms of the College
and other devices. This screen had a canopy adorned
with fine carved work, and stood at a little distance
from the east wall ; there were doors in it leading to
the void space behind, which was used for the inter-
ment of Senior Fellows. The back of the Altar seems
to have been hung with damask, and the Altar itself
covered with a purple velvet Communion-cloth with
silk and gold fringes, partly paid for by the Provost.
The cost of these alterations was more than 200.
But a more permanent change had been made in the
110 KING'S COLLEGE
appearance of the Chapel a generation earlier, when the
organ was placed on the rood-loft. Some sort of organ,
but of a humble kind, had no doubt been used from the
first, for the Statutes required that one of the chaplains,
or else a lay clerk, should be competent " jubilare in
organis " ; and the College Accounts show that a modest
sum of money had been spent on the repair of the
organ and as a stipend to the performer. The instru-
ment which was in the Chapel at Elizabeth's acces-
sion had been sold by order of her Commissioners.
During the two years, 1596-97, which Orlando Gibbons
spent as a Chorister under the charge of his elder
brother, it is doubtful whether there was any organ in
the Chapel, and the music which he composed for
certain festivals, and for which he received from the
College payments of Zs. or Zs. 6d. in 1601-1603, may
well have been sung without accompaniment.
In 1606, however, a new departure was made. John
Tomkins was appointed Organist, and was probably the
first who held that title. His salary was about ^14 a
year, and he seems, in addition, to have had rooms and
commons in College. It was part of his duty to
instruct the Choristers in music. On his appointment,
and probably under his superintendence, if not at his
instigation, a new organ was built by a Dallam or
Dalham; more than half a century later there were
three of this name employed in building organs for
York Minster, for New College, Oxford, for St. George's,
Windsor, and other places. It was probably the father
of these three who was employed at King's. Dallam
and his men were lodged in the town of Cambridge for
more than a year, and boarded in the College Hall ;
THE EVE OF THE CIVIL WAR 111
from one item, for suppers on Fridays, it would seem
that they required extra dishes when the College fare
was meagre. The cost of the organ was about ^214, and
that of the case \56. Nothing of Dallam's organ re-
mains, but the case has undergone only slight alterations,
and is a beautiful specimen of Jacobean woodwork.*
It was now the springtime of English Church Music ;
which, after a temporary check under the chilling
influence of Puritan ascendency, was soon to reach its
maturity in the compositions of such men as Blow,
Purcell, and Croft. With a new organ and a really
great organist it is probable that the College Services
became more widely attractive. Within the last
hundred years the Chapel had been the scene of Latin
Stage-plays, of Provost Goad's catechetical lectures, and
of the Visitor's judgments, sometimes delivered to a
disrespectful and tumultuous audience. Now it began
to be in some degree the Cathedral of Cambridge. A
regulation of James I. in 1619, the object of which was
to secure the due maintenance of services in the various
College Chapels, forbids the ladies of Cambridge to
repair to any such services except the ordinary Prayers
in King's Chapel. There was still room for improve-
ment ; at least in the opinion of one of the Heads, who
in 1636 sent to Archbishop Laud a complaint of various
ecclesiastical irregularities at Cambridge, and observes
that at King's College
* Dr. M. R. James, whose judgment is entitled to the greatest
weight, is confident that some parts of the organ-case date from the
reign of Henry VIII. If so, it is probable that the first organ used
in the Chapel stood in the rood-loft. It may have been placed on
one side, so as to leave the centre free for the rood itself, as is the
arrangement in the Church of St. Bertrand de Comminges.
KING'S COLLEGE
" some of the Choir, both men and boys, are mute and
come without surplices when they list ; that the singing is
hasty and slovenly."
Even in modern times it is not an uncommon thing for
some members of a choir to be too old, and some too
young, to be effective singers, and we need not attach
great weight to the remarks of a solitary critic, who
perhaps had not much experience on which to base his
criticism. John Milton left the University in 1632,
and is believed to have written // Penseroso within the
next five years. One cannot but believe that a remi-
niscence of King's College Services helped to inspire the
lines,
" There let the pealing organ blow
To the full voic'd Quire below,
In service high, and Anthems clear,
As may with sweetness, through mine ear,
Dissolve me into ecstacies,
And bring all Heav'n before mine eyes."
About this time the monotony of College life at
King's was enlivened by a quarrel with their nearest
neighbours. In 1637 the authorities of Clare Hall,
being about to rebuild their College, wished to retire
from Milne Street and move their Quadrangle west-
ward. By so doing they would at once gain for them-
selves and confer on King's the benefit of more light
and air. But Clare had at that time no property to
the west of the Cam. The ground on the far side of
the river was the property of King's, and Clare, naturally
desiring an outlet to the open fields beyond, wished to
secure a free passage through Butt Close (the name by
THE EVE OF THE CIVIL WAR 113
which the area now known as the "Quarters 1 " 1 or
" Scholars 1 Piece " of King's, together with the old Clare
Garden, was then called). The proposal made by Clare
was that leave should be given them to make a cause-
way running west from the bridge which they meant
to build, or else that an exchange of property should
be arranged, whereby King's would acquire a piece of
ground at the north-west corner of the Chapel and should
surrender part of Butt Close to Clare. Apparently
without waiting for an answer, they applied to the
King not merely for a passage but for a piece of ground,
and the King directed that their application should be
granted. The Kingsmen not unnaturally resented this
method of cutting the knot, and a controversy ensued.
It was argued, on the part of King's, that their Statutes
forbade them to alienate land, that the close neighbour-
hood of the Clare buildings was a protection against
west winds and violent storms ; and that Butt Close
was the exercise-ground of a hundred persons, besides
giving pasturage to ten horses which they were bound
by Statute to keep. The matter was referred to Lord
Holland, the Chancellor, who seems to have persuaded
the College to withdraw their opposition. At any rate,
a letter from the King, March 17, 1638, ordered the ex-
change to take place. But there was to be no actual
sale. Each College was to lease ground to the other
for terms of twenty years, to be renewed without any
fine ; King's College paying l%d. a year for their new
acquisition, and receiving in return =5 yearly rent for
the part of the close which they surrendered to Clare.
It is rather remarkable that in 1633 and 1634 three
out of the four Regius Professorships were held by
114 KING'S COLLEGE
Kingsmen ; for, besides Collins and Winterton, one of
the Goad family was Professor of Civil Law. Not long
before him the same office had been held by another
Kingsman, who may be said to have thrown down the
gauntlet in the cause of Absolutism. This was John
Cowell, who became Professor in 1594 and Master of
Trinity Hall in 1598. As a Scholar of King's he had
distinguished himself by his regularity ; and it is
recorded as a College custom of the following century
that on every 7th of January the senior Scholar after
supper visited the College authorities with a request for
a " Dor," i.e., for leave to the Scholars to lie in bed till
late next morning " in memoriam Doctoris Cowell who
then and never else overslept himself and missed early
prayers." The book by which he gained notoriety was
not published till 1612; it was called the Interpreter,
and its professed object was to explain the meaning of
legal terms. But, as Dr. Johnson afterwards made his
Dictionary a vehicle for expressing his political senti-
ments, so to a much greater degree did Cowell in
giving his explanations of such words as "King, 11
"Parliament, 11 "Prerogative, 11 to the effect that the
King was superior to the Law, that in asking the
Houses of Parliament to pass laws he was waiving his
own absolute power, and that subsidies were granted to
him in consideration of this condescension on his part.
The House of Commons was immediately on the alert,
instigated, it was said, by Coke, who was believed to be
jealous of Cowell, and who was certainly jealous of the
Civil Law; but, before Parliament had time to act,
James had summoned the rash Professor before the
Council, and had called upon him to justify some other
THE EVE OF THE CIVIL WAR 115
passages in his book, which " do as well pinch the
authority of the King, as the other points were
derogatorie to the liberty of the subject"; and had
decided that Cowell impugned the Common Law of
England, and that in opposing Prerogative to Law he
had attacked both King and People together. Cowell
was committed to the custody of an Alderman, his
book suppressed, and burnt by the common hangman.
Two months later he resigned his Professorship, and
before the end of the year he died.
If Cowell was a champion of political theories which
led to civil war, Richard Mountagu was equally
prominent in maintaining those Church views with
which the Stuart cause was intimately associated. He
became a Fellow of King's in 1597. In the year 1610
he was at Eton, engaged in editing the works of
Chrysostom and other Greek Fathers for Sir Henry
Savile, the Provost, who had set up a printing-press
there. Three years later, at the age of thirty-six, he
became a Fellow of Eton, and other preferment fol-
lowed. Before long he was engaged in a controversy
with the Roman Catholics, whose emissaries he had
found endeavouring to pervert one of his parishioners
at Stanford Rivers in Essex. But even before this he
had undertaken, at King James's request, to write a
reply to Cardinal Baronius. His book was so dis-
pleasing to Archbishop Abbot that for a time it was
suppressed. When it appeared in 1622, it was found
to be a learned Latin inquiry into the origin and early
history of the Faith, with the view of showing that
Anglican doctrine was derived from primitive sources.
This was not a line of argument likely to please the
116 KING'S COLLEGE
Puritans, especially as Mountagu, in the controversy in
which he had embarked on behalf of his parishioners,
while maintaining that the Church of Rome was not a
sound branch of the Catholic Church, hesitated to call
the Pope Antichrist. Not that he had any scruple
about using hard words ; for he named his an ti- Roman
pamphlet, A new Gag for an old Goose; and in
describing to his friend Cosin what he had done, he
says, " Answere it I have .... bitterly and tartly, I
confesse, which I did purposely because the asse deserved
so to be rub'd." But he declined to fight Rome with
Puritan weapons, his own position being that of an
Anglo-Catholic. He went so far as to defend auricular
confession, though only as a voluntary practice ; and
the use of pictures and images to excite devotion, not
as objects of adoration.
These doctrines roused the indignation of two Ipswich
clergymen, who complained to the House of Commons.
The House referred the matter to the Archbishop;
Abbot remonstrated with Mountagu, but King James
took his part. " If that is to be a Papist," said he, " I
am a Papist." At the crisis of the controversy the old
King died ; and Mountagu, who had been encouraged
to write a fuller vindication of his views, now produced
and dedicated to Charles I. his well-known Appello
Ccesarem.
In this work he neither retracts his opinions nor
softens his language. It is a masterly treatise, written
in vigorous English ; especially the fifth chapter, which
deals with the burning question of predestination. He
protests that his own object is to " make up if it were
possible the breaches and ruines of the Church " ; but
THE EVE OF THE CIVIL WAR 117
he will have nothing to do with the Puritans 1 " com-
fortable Doctrine of Election and Reprobation." He
retorts on them the charge of disloyalty :
"you seem to cloze with the Church of England in her
Discipline, to use the Crosse, and wear the Clothes ; but
her Doctrine you wave it, preach against it, teach contrary
to that which you have subscribed."
Being himself perfectly at home in classical and. patristic
literature, he does not conceal his contempt for Puritan
ignorance :
" If you with your new learning (for old you have none)
can teach me more than yet I know, I will yeeld and thank
you for such instruction.
"If I have any occasion hereafter to speak of learned
and moderate men, I will ever except and exempt you and
yours."
\
He sums up his views by saying that
" Popery is for Tyranny, Puritanisme for Anarchy ; Popery
is originall of Superstition; Puritanisme the highway unto
Prophanenesse ; both alike enemies unto Piety."
For two or three years the controversy continued.
Parliamentary inquiries and theological conferences
were held, and at one time Mountagu was in the custody
of the Serjeant-at-Arms. So far as argument went
he was at least a match for his numerous opponents,
and he had the support of the King. But he had
spoken disrespectfully of the Synod of Dort, and
(though he disclaimed the title of Arminian) he was a
thoroughgoing antagonist of the predominant Calvinism.
Even the excellent Bishop Morton, whom Mountagu
118 KING'S COLLEGE
speaks of with respect and not unfrequently quotes in
his Appello, could make no terms with him on this
crucial question. At last, in 1628, when he was in
imminent danger of impeachment, some sort of peace
was restored by the suppression of the obnoxious
treatise, and by a royal declaration imposing silence
on both parties. At the same time Mountagu was
raised to the See of Chichester, and it was clear on
which side the King^s sympathies really lay.
Mountagu's letters to his friend Cosin, afterwards
Bishop of Durham, reveal both the earnestness of
purpose and the recklessness of language which were
alike characteristic of the man, his self-confidence and
his disdain for his opponents. It must be added that
the letters also show him to have been a loyal friend
and an affectionate father. He saw clearly enough the
double danger which then threatened the Church of
England :
" I hope God will every day raise up some to stand in the
gapp against Puritanisme and Popery, the Scilla and
Charybdis of antient piety."
But, though circumstances had driven him into contro-
versy with Rome, he recognised that the more pressing
danger came from the side of Geneva :
" If it be but calamo tenus, all the Calvinists in the world
come on, I care not."
" This riff-raff rascals make us lyable to the lash unto our
other adversaries of the Church of Rome, who impute the
frantick fitts and froth of every Puritan paroxysme to the
received doctrine of our Church, as this beboone doth with
whom I have lately had to do, S r Goose the Gagger."
THE EVE OF THE CIVIL WAR 119
And the danger was a personal one :
" Let me understand at full the Puritan charity, what it is,
as Arminius found amongst the brethren in the Nether-
lands. From their doctrine, discipline, and charity, Good
Lord deliver me and all honest men."
The answers to his Appello were numerous, and to one
of his antagonists, Dr. Prideaux, Rector of Exeter
College and Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford, he
was especially uncomplimentary :
" Prideux hath thretned to write against me. Utinam t
But I think he distrusteth himself and his pen. . . . For
those Oxford braggarts I fear them not ; ther pens nor
pratinge."
Allowance must be made for the fact that Mountagu is
unbosoming himself to an intimate friend ; but those
who read his letters will readily understand the criti-
cism of Davenant, Bishop of Salisbury :
" I wish he had a more modest concept of himself and a
less base opinion of all others who jump not with him in
his mongrel opinions."
The closing words of the Appello, " Do thou defend
me with thy sword, and I will defend thee with my
pen," gave Mountagu ? s enemies some excuse for repre-
senting him as relying on royal prerogative, and on try-
ing to set King against people. But Mountagu was no
politician. His whole mind was given up to ecclesias-
tical questions. As Bishop, first of Chichester and then
for a short time of Norwich, he was diligent in the
duties of his diocese without abandoning his literary
work. Towards the close of his life, 1635-36, he was
120 KING'S COLLEGE
represented by Panzani, the Papal envoy, as being for-
ward in promoting union with Rome, and as willing to
accept all Romish doctrine except Transubstantiation.
It is rather surprising that this exception should be
made, for his views on Eucharistic Doctrine might
easily be interpreted so as to bear a Roman meaning,
though on other grounds he was an outspoken anta-
gonist of the Papacy. But Panzani's account contains
many improbabilities, and he was very likely to mis-
understand, if he did not deliberately misrepresent, the
conversations which he had with Mountagu. Better
evidence must be produced before we can believe that
the Bishop was ready to abandon his old position.
For the moment, indeed, he was the champion of a
losing cause. The minds of his generation were not ripe
for Anglicanism, which was made still more unpopular
by the harshness of the discipline with which it was
enforced. But its greatest misfortune was that it
happened to be allied with political absolutism. The
latter was doomed to perish, but the former survived
the Rebellion, reappeared at the Restoration, and, after
suffering a temporary eclipse in the Hanoverian period,
reasserted itself in the Oxford movement of the nine-
teenth century. The names of Andrewes, Laud, Overall,
and Mountagu are all intimately associated with the
earlier movement in the seventeenth century. However
imperfect that theology may be, it was at least a great
improvement on the hard and narrow school which pre-
ceded it, and to Mountagu, more than to any other,
belongs the honour of dealing a blow at those Calvin-
istic doctrines which were almost forced on the Church
of England in the Lambeth Articles of 1595, and
THE EVE OF THE CIVIL WAR
which had actually become supreme in the minds of
Englishmen. It was necessary that men should be
emancipated from this yoke before they could adopt
some theology which should be at once more reasonable
and more historical, and in which it would be possible
for later generations of educated Englishmen to find
a home. Those who appreciate the important part
which Mountagu played in this eventful struggle
will be inclined to forgive the extravagances of his
language.
CHAPTER IX
DARK DAYS
WHEN King and Parliament came to actual war, it was
inevitable that a College with the traditions of King's
should, for the most part, embrace the cause of the
former. And within a year of the time when the royal
standard was raised at Nottingham, members of the
College had left their Fellowships or Scholarships to
take up arms, while some of those who continued to
pursue their peaceful callings had to suffer for their
loyalty to Church and King. Such was the case with
William Losse, who had been admitted to the College
forty years earlier, had gained some distinction as a
mathematician, and had been presented to the Vicarage
of Weedon Pinckney in Northamptonshire. There, on
the afternoon of Sunday, July 2, 1643, he was reading
the service, when ten or twelve troopers came from
Northampton, entered the church, and ordered the
Vicar at once to follow them. Losse begged them to
wait till he had finished the service ; to which a trooper
answered :
" Patience me no patience, my business is of greater
importance than to admit of delay ; come away therefore
or I will pull you out by the ears."
DARK DAYS 123
The Vicar went with them into the churchyard, and
being told that he must ride with them into Northampton
excused himself, alleging that
" twelve or thirteen horses had been taken from him by
the Parliamentary soldiers, and had left him never a one
able to carry him two miles out of town."
Whereupon one of the troopers swore that he would
carry him behind him ; and " if he did not like that, he
would drag him along with a halter at the horse's tail."
This was too much for the Vicar, who protested
" That he would never be a slave to slaves ; and so rushing
from them with difficulty took sanctuary in the Church,
where he was pursued by one of the Troopers on horseback,
who in that situation was attempting to enter, had not
Mr. Losse with one of the bars of the door resolutely
prevented him, and barred himself in with part of the
Congregation. But not thinking himself sufficiently
secure, by means of a ladder which he drew up after him
he got up to the top of the Belfry."
Meanwhile the troopers succeeded in forcing an entry
into the church, and rode up and down it, " spurring
and switching their horses purposely to endanger the
people."" Mrs. Losse and her children were frightened
by this outrageous conduct ; indeed, Mrs. Losse fainted,
and the congregation remonstrated with the troopers,
putting them in mind of the sacredness of the place in
which " they committed these Indecencies " : adding that
they ought to be ashamed to abuse a minister in his
own congregation, who, " besides the reverence due to
his function might challenge some respect from them
124 KING'S COLLEGE
being a gentleman of good birth and descent." This
last was an ill-timed argument, for one of the troopers
broke out with a great oath,
" What do you tell me of birth and descent ? A plague
take him and his gentility. I hope within this year to see
never a gentleman in England."
After this they all marched to the belfry,
"where when they found they could not come at Mr.
Losse, who had taken up the ladder and made the trapdoor
fast with the same, they discharged their pistols at him, at
least eight or nine times, but by good Providence he
avoided their aims; but could not so well the points of
their swords ; for they wounded him in three several parts
of his body and a vein pricked in one of his hands, from
which the blood flowed in such abundance on the Troopers
underneath him, that they bragged there and in other
places that they had dispatched him, and so went their
way calling him Rogue, Rascall, Slave, Villain, Dog and
Devill ; and at their departure protested with many exe-
crations upon themselves that in case they had not
murthered him now, which yet they hoped they had, they
would return another time, and have him dead or alive."
William Losse offered only a passive resistance to the
demands of the Parliamentary party ; other Kingsmen
had already taken more active steps. James Fleetwood,
was was admitted Scholar in 1622, and was one day to
be Provost, left a Shropshire living to become Chaplain
in Lord Rivers's regiment, and did such good service at
Edge Hill that by the King^s command he received the
degree of D.D. from the University of Oxford on
November 1, 1642. As his kinsmen had chosen the
DARK DAYS 125
Parliamentary side, the King may have wished to give
a special reward for Fleetwood's loyalty. It may be
presumed that his services had been only of a spiritual
kind, but the names of a dozen or more Kingsmen are
recorded who left their books for the sword. Of these,
some, like James Eyre and Charles Howard, lost their
lives in battle or siege ; the most interesting case being
that of Sampson Briggs, who is said to have been a
very good scholar and excellent poet. At any rate he
wrote an English poem in 1638 on the unhappy loss
of Edward King (Milton^s Lycidas), drowned on the
passage to Ireland. And when Briggs himself fell at
the siege of Gloucester, his aged father, the parson of
Foulmire, went distracted on hearing the news. Others,
however, survived the war. Thus William Fairbrother,
who was taken prisoner at Naseby, June 14, 1645,
returned to College and became Vice-Provost in 1653.
In 1660 he had the satisfaction of entertaining in Hall
the soldiers who had just been firing volleys from the
roof of the Chapel to celebrate the Restoration. He
was still living in 1669 ? in which year he received the
degree of D.C.L. at Oxford on the occasion of the
opening of Sheldon's Theatre. William Raven, who
had commanded a troop of horse, ended his life as
Rector of West Parley in Dorsetshire ; and there were
other cases of the same kind.
Probably Henry Bard and Arthur Swaine were the
two Kingsmen who gained most distinction in the war.
Swaine had only been four years at College when he
joined the King at Oxford in 1643 :
" being a man of extraordinary stout and strong body and
126 KING'S COLLEGE
undaunted courage, and every way completely fitted for
such an employment. In a short time after his coming
thither he was for his eminent service made Colonel of a
regiment of Foot and Commissary General for his Majesty's
army in the West ; but teaching his servant the postures
of the musket at Oxford, by the unadvised going off of the
same, he thinking it was not charged and ordering him to
level it at him, he was unfortunately slain, and buried in
the Cathedral of Christ Church with the general sorrow of
the city."
A promising soldier was thus lost to the King. Henry
Bard's career was a longer one. He seems to have been
of a restless and roving disposition. Even when a
Scholar he used his sixty days of absence to visit Paris ;
and as soon as he became a M.A. Fellow, he wandered
all over the Continent and travelled into Palestine,
Arabia and Egypt. On his return he presented a copy
of the Koran to the College Library. His enemies
said that he had stolen it out of a mosque in Egypt ;
and that, when told it was not worth more than %0,
he " made answer that he was sorry he had ventured his
neck for it." He was now to venture his neck for a
different cause, and in 1642 he entered the King's
service at York, where he soon became a Colonel ; his
knowledge of French, and perhaps also his "very
personable appearance," recommending him to the
Queen's favour. He became governor of Camden House
in Gloucestershire, and fought his way out of it, when
it was no longer tenable, after setting it on fire ; and
"entertained the besiegers so that they spilt not so
much claret wine in the House as they left blood before
it." In March 1644 his reckless courage contributed
DARK DAYS 127
to the loss of the battle fought near Alresford, and left
him wounded and a prisoner.
On his release he went to Oxford, where he received a
fresh command as well as an Irish peerage ; and as
Viscount Bellamont he fought at Naseby. Till 1645,
when he married, he remained a Fellow of King's.
Some years later he joined Charles II. at Bruges, and
was sent by him as Ambassador to the Emperor of
Persia, from whom Charles hoped for aid. But " so it
was that he being unhappily overtaken in his travels by
a whirlwind was choked by the sands in the year 1656."
For those who remained at Cambridge during these
years of war there was no lack of excitement. Already
some College plate had found its way to the King's
quarters ; but Oliver Cromwell, who as M.P. for the
town of Cambridge naturally took the lead, intercepted
the greater part of these supplies; and an attempt
made early in August 164$ by one James Docwra to
collect a force at King's College, " where y e plate was
loaden and readie to be conveyed to y e King," was
defeated by the activity of Cromwell, who soon after-
wards seized the castle with its magazine. Cambridge
was an important outpost of the volunteer army raised
by the Eastern Counties Association ; and there, in
February 1643, a force assembled large enough to deter
the Royalist Lord Capel from remaining in the neigh-
bourhood. Within a few weeks, however, most of the
volunteers returned to their homes, leaving 1000 men to
garrison Cambridge. For the defence of the town it was
thought necessary to pull down "five or six fair bridges
of stone and timber," and also " to spoil a goodly walk
with a new gate pertaining to King's College."
128 KING'S COLLEGE
Attempts were also made to extort money from the
Heads of Colleges, and the University sent a petition to
the House of Lords representing
" how in our Colleges our numbers grow thin, and our
revenues short ; how frighted by the neighbouring noise of
war our students either fled their gowns, or abandoned
their studies."
The Colleges were not, however, empty, for soldiers
were billeted in them. The Earl of Manchester, who
spent the Christmas of 1643 at Cambridge, supported
the Colleges in a petition to Parliament to be freed
from the ordinance, which had sequestered all " lands
and profits belonging to those Colleges which did con-
vey their plate. 11 These petitions were granted, but
the Earl was ordered to make the Colleges " orthodox."
As Parliament and the Army had already taken the
Covenant, in order to secure the aid of the Scotch, and
an ordinance followed on February 5, 1644, directing
that it should be taken by every Englishman over the
age of eighteen, this meant that Presbyterianism was
to be enforced, and the Prayer Book superseded by
the Directory. Now came the critical moment for the
College Chapel. It was bad enough that bands of
soldiers should use it for training and exercise, but it
was still worse that William Dowsing, under a Parlia-
mentary order for demolishing idols, images, pic-
tures, &c., which he carried out ruthlessly in the county
churches, should lay his sacrilegious hands on the
windows.
It appears from Dowsing's diary that this act of
vandalism was to have been perpetrated immediately
DARK DAYS 129
after Christmas of 1643. How the glass escaped
remains a mystery, especially as Dowsing had authority
from the Earl of Manchester to bring before the latter
any who had opposed his work. Mr. Coneybeare, in
his History of Cambridgeshire, adopts a suggestion
made by Professor Willis that Dowsing, who received a
"fee" for each church which he had "purified,"" may
have been persuaded to take the money and leave the
windows alone. This explanation receives some con-
firmation from an entry in the College Accounts for the
quarter beginning March 25, 1644, "Solut. M ro
Dowzing 6*. 8d." ; but it is difficult to believe that so
small a sum, being the amount to which he was entitled
in all cases of "purification," would have induced
Dowsing to spare so rich a prey. If he received a more
substantial bribe, the transaction was kept out of the
College Accounts. This explanation, however, is more
probable than that which attributes the escape to the
friendship of Cromwell for Whichcote, as Whichcote
did not become Provost of King^s till about a year after
the danger had passed away. He was not even a
resident in Cambridge at this time, but was living at
his Somersetshire parish of North Cadbury. If, indeed,
the windows were again threatened at some later date,
the influence of the Provost may very probably have
saved them ; but of this there is no evidence. Perhaps
the mystery will seem a little less mysterious, if we
remember Cromweirs position and character. He must
have felt a personal interest in the town and University ;
and it was an object with his party to win over one of
the two great Universities ; nor had any serious opposi-
tion occurred in Cambridge to irritate the minds of his
130 KING'S COLLEGE
followers. Now to deface the great glory of Cambridge
was hardly the way to conciliate Cambridge men ; and
though Cromwell could, on occasions, behave like a
fanatic, as he did when he interrupted the service in
Ely Cathedral and drove out the congregation, yet he
did not allow fanaticism to interfere with policy. It is
on record also that about this time some of the soldiers
defended Trinity Chapel from the rudeness of the rest,
and received a reward from the College for their good
conduct. There is therefore some probability thai both
general and soldiers may have been inclined to spare
works of art, which from their very position were
happily protected from anything short of deliberate
violence. The popular legend, which attributes the
preservation of the windows to their having been taken
down and buried in a single night, has neither historical
evidence nor intrinsic probability to entitle it to any
serious attention.
But, if the buildings were spared, the same mercy
was not shown to their inhabitants. Samuel Collins,
at any rate, could not hope to escape. He was Head
of a royal Foundation ; he was Regius Professor of a
theology now proscribed ; and he was non-resident
rector of a country parish. At Fen Ditton he was de-
nounced for setting up a costly altar ; "his superstition
is so great, and his doctrine so impossible to edify " ;
and it was said that he made feastings on the Sabbath
days. From what we know of his style of oratory, it is
likely enough that he preached over the heads of the
Cambridgeshire peasants ; and if it is true that he ex-
communicated some of them for four years for going to
hear sermons elsewhere, it is not likely that his parish-
DARK DAYS 131
loners would exert themselves in his favour. At about
the same time he was deprived of his Provostship, but
was allowed to retain the sinecure Rectory of Milton.
As late as September 4, 1644, he was present as Provost
at an admission of two Fellows, and the actual date of
his deprivation seems to have been January 9, 1645.
As to his Professorship, it is said that he was allowed
to discharge the duties without receiving the emolu-
ments of the Living of Somersham, with which it was
endowed. This is Fuller's account, who tells us that,
" these troublesome times affording more Preachers
than Professors, he lost his Church but kept his Chair."
And the account is confirmed by the fact that it was
not till the year of Dr. Collinses death that another
Professor was appointed. He was offered by the King
the Bishopric of Bristol in 1646, a time when the
position of a Bishop was becoming very precarious ; but
he preferred to live on in the town of Cambridge, where
the generosity of his successor in the Provostship helped
to keep him out of want till 1651, when he died at the
age of 75.
The new Provost, Benjamin Whichcote, is said to
have protected his Fellows from the necessity of taking
the covenant. Five, however, seem to have been ejected
at this crisis, the most eminent being Thomas Crouch,
who continued to reside in Cambridge as a Fellow-
Commoner of Trinity Hall. When after the King's
death the Republic was proclaimed, and the members
of the College were called upon to take the engagement
of October 12, 1649, that they would be true to the
new Constitution without a King or House of Lords, a
considerable number of Fellows either resigned or were
132 KING'S COLLEGE
ejected, among them Henry Molle, the Public Orator,
who lost both office and Fellowship together. The
youngest of the victims must have been Christopher
Wase, who was chosen by Whichcote on his first visit
to Eton in 1645, and admitted a Scholar of King's in
that year. In 1650, the year before the campaign
which ended in the defeat of Worcester, he was accused
of trying to raise men and horses for the King, and was
captured at sea carrying letters from Holland to France.
He then escaped, and served in the Spanish army in
Flanders. A little later we hear of him in Paris, where,
John Evelyn tells us in his Diary,
" he came miserable. From his excellent learning . . .
I bore his charges to England and clad and provided for
him till he should find some better condition ; and he was
worthy of it."
Wase showed his gratitude by writing an elaborate
epitaph on a son of Evelyn's, who died quite young,
and who
" Libris inhsesit improbo labore
Ut sola mors divelleret ;
Quid indoles, quid disciplina, quid labor
Possent, ab uno disceres."
Wase afterwards became Headmaster of Tunbridge
School, but he ended his days at Oxford, where he was
both a Bedell and Chief Printer to the University.
The College records show that in the years July 1649
-July 1651 no less than twenty -nine Scholars were
admitted. Possibly some vacancies of old standing
were filled up at this time but the recent ejections
DARK DAYS 133
would almost account for the unusual number of admis-
sions. The fact that some of those who served in the
King's armies were permitted to return to College and
live there as Fellows shews that the Presbyterian party
at any rate did not, as a rule, act in an implacable or
revengeful spirit. Yet if the studies and discipline of
the College did not after all greatly suffer in these
troubled times, this must have been chiefly due to the
noble character and rare abilities of the usurping
Provost.
CHAPTER X
WHICHCOTE AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE was a member of an old Shrop-
shire family, and became a Fellow of Emmanuel College
in 1633, and not long afterwards a Tutor; but at the
time of his appointment to the Provostship of King's
he was living in Somersetshire as Rector of North
Cadbury. He was one of the small but distinguished
group of Cambridge Platonists. Bishop Mountagu
had asserted the freedom of the human will ; Whichcote
advocated the rights of human reason. His object was
to show that the witness of Reason and Revelation
agree, and that there can be no saving faith without a
Christlike character. Moreover, he was a champion
of toleration. In maintaining these views he parted
from the narrow school of theology in which he had been
trained, and which his mind had gradually outgrown ;
and his correspondence with his old Tutor, Anthony
Tuckney, Master of Emmanuel, reveals a wide difference
between the Puritan and the Platonist.
Whichcote wrote little, except twelve hundred Aphor-
isms, but he was a great teacher both within his College
and outside it. For almost twenty years he lectured
every Sunday afternoon to a mixed congregation of
townsmen and gownsmen in Trinity Church, and is
WHICHCOTE AND CONTEMPORARIES 135
said thereby to have " contributed more to the forming
of the students of the University to a sober sense of
religion than any other man in that age." Within his
College he encouraged the study of his favourite
authors, Plato, Cicero, and Plotinus, and it was probably
owing to his influence that two Kingsmen, admitted
during his Provostship, Richard Austin and Richard
Hunt, gained such distinction as Orientalists that it
was said that "The Palme for skill in the oriental
languages may well be given to King's College."
Whichcote was accused by his old Tutor, Dr. Tuckney,
of exalting the philosophy and virtues of pagans, and
also of dabbling in Socinianism and Arminianism. In
reply he admits :
" I find the Philosophers that I have read good as farre as
they go ; and it makes me secretlie blushe before God,
when I find eyther my head, heart, or life challenged by
them ; which, I must confesse, I have often found."
And in one of his Aphorisms he says, "The Good
Nature of an Heathen is more Godlike than the furious
zeal of a Christian." While denying that he has any
knowledge of Socinian or Arminian literature, he tells
Tuckney :
" If a Socinian thinks he can by reason convince of false-
hood anything in the Christian religion, and I shew him
there is nothing of true reason against aniething of
Christian faith. ... I conceeve, in this case, I deserve as
little to be called a Socinian as David, for extorting
Goliah's sword out of his hand, and cutting off the master's
head with it, did deserve to be esteemed a Philistine. ''
136 KING'S COLLEGE
His toleration was based on a conviction that men
must use their reason as much as their eyesight, and
" I will not/' he says, " break the certain law of Charity
for a doubtful Doctrine " . . . " I dare not blaspheme free
and noble spirits in religion, who search after truth with
indifference and ingenuitie."
Such men have been, and still are, persecuted ; but " I
do beleeve that the destroying of this spirit (of perse-
cution) out of the Church is a peece of the Reformation,
which God in these times of changes aimes at." " There
is nothing more unnatural to religion than contentions
about it." He had reached a higher level, and breathed
a clearer air, than his old Tutor, to whom he says :
" I cannot returne to that frame of spirit, in the judging
and discerning the things of God you seeme to advise me
to. I can no more look back than St. Paul, after Christ
discovered to him, could returne into his former strayne."
All that we know of Whichcote goes to show that
his practice did not fall short of his principles. Even
those who differed from him trusted and loved him.
Yet neither his own merits nor the intercession of Lord
Lauderdale could save him from ejection at the Restora-
tion. Whichcote urged that the appointment of the
Provostship was in the King's hands, and that other
non-Kingsmen had held the office before him ; that he
had accepted it unwillingly, and given up for it a valu-
able living. One of the Senior Fellows, William God-
man, though he represented to the King that Whichcote
was by Statute incapable of being Provost, yet freely
admitted that " his great learning, prudence, and civility
WHICHCOTE AND CONTEMPORARIES 137
(whereof we of this College have had large experience),"
made him worthy of as great or greater preferment and
dignity ; that he was
" an encourager of learning and virtue ; that he never
persecuted any of us upon difference of opinion . . . and
that he hath deserved well of the whole Society."
Yet on June 22, 1660, the blow fell, though it was
somewhat softened by the fact that the College con-
ferred on him the Rectory of Milton. Here, though he
had also from time to time the charge of two London
parishes, he " preached constantly, relieved the poor
and had their children educated at his own charge, and
made up differences among the neighbours." He died
in 1683, in the house of his friend Cud worth at
Cambridge.
The Provostship, conferred on Whichcote, had first
been offered to a former Fellow of King's, William
Gouge, who for more than forty years was a noted
preacher at St. Anne's, Blackfriars. He obtained his
Fellowship in 1598, and for some years lectured in
various subjects, including Hebrew. So strict was he in
his conduct and attendance at prayers that he was
known in College as the " Arch-Puritan." In after life
he justified his claim to the title by refusing to read the
Book of Sports and still more by joining a com-
mittee formed in 1626 for buying in lay impropria-
tions, in order to maintain a preaching Ministry in
places where " The hungry sheep looked up and were
not fed." This committee was, no doubt, actuated by
a sincere wish to preach the Gospel in neglected
parishes, but it is equally clear that the ministers whom
138 KING'S COLLEGE
they appointed, and who held their Lectureships only
so long as their doctrine satisfied their patrons, belonged
to a class disaffected to the discipline, if not to the
doctrine, of the Church of England ; and it was a
doubtful gain when the tithes of Presteign in Radnor-
shire, itself very ill provided with clergy, were used to
pay for a Lecturer at St. Antholin's in London. In
1643 Gouge openly adopted Presbyterianism, and w r as a
prominent member of the Westminster Assembly of
Divines. But he was no republican, and protested
against the King's trial. To the last he was a diligent
student, and spent part of his income in providing for
the education of poor Scholars at the University.
His son Thomas, Scholar of King's in 1625, followed
in his father's steps ; and, as a London clergyman,
exerted himself to help the poor by buying hemp and
flax for them to spin ; what they spun he took off their
hands, got it wrought into cloth, and sold it as he
could, chiefly to his own friends, bearing the whole loss
himself. The Act of Uniformity in 1662 obliged him
to resign his Living; and his latter years, and what
was left of his property, much of which had been lost in
the Fire of 1666, were devoted to a missionary and
educational crusade in Wales.
The Gouges represent the religious side of Puritanism.
Anthony Ascham, another Kingsman, was a politician
of the same school. Soon after the outbreak of the
Civil War he took the covenant, then sided with the
Independents, and was made Preceptor to James, Duke
of York, on the capture of Oxford in 1646. In
January 1650, when the Parliament had resolved to
conciliate Spain rather than France, Ascham was sent
WHICHCOTE AND CONTEMPORARIES 139
on a mission to Madrid. Madrid was then full of
English royalists ; and Hyde and Lord Cottington, who
represented Charles II. in that capital, remonstrated
with the Spanish authorities for receiving envoys from
a republic which had killed a Christian king. The
Spaniards excused themselves on the plea that Ascham's
visit was only for the purpose of making trade arrange-
ments. Early in June Ascham and his companions
arrived from Seville, and a contemporary tract de-
scribes his reception by the favourite, Don Luis de
Haro ; and " though this Agent be of a complexion
that the Spaniards do hate (for they paint Judas
always with red hair), yet there hath not been the least
Affront or Indignity offered him yet." Within a week
of their arrival at Madrid, however, Ascham and his
friends were assassinated in their own house by a party
of English royalists ; and the Spaniards connived at the
escape of all the murderers except one, who was a
Protestant. When Cromwell broke with Spain in 1655,
this outrage was not forgotten.
The College may be proud both of its Cavaliers and
its Roundheads. It is more difficult to feel sympathy
for a Mr. Facing Both ways, however great his abilities ;
and such a man was Edmund Waller. He was left at
an early age heir to a good property in the highlands
of Buckinghamshire, and entered King's as a Fellow -
Commoner in 1621. His wealth was increased by his
first marriage ; and, as a young widower of twenty-five,
he aspired to the hand of Lady Dorothea Sidney, whom
he courted in poetry under the name of Saccharissa.
In the Parliaments of 1640 he spoke against granting
supplies before the redress of grievances, and was
140 KING'S COLLEGE
employed in managing the prosecution of a Judge who
had decided in favour of ship-money. But he opposed
the abolition of Episcopacy, urging that the arguments
used by the abolitionists would soon be directed against
property. So far there was nothing in his public con-
duct to distinguish him from other moderate reformers.
But in 1643 he was concerned in the plot known as
" Waller's Conspiracy/ 1 In the preceding year he had
sent c^lOOO to the King at Nottingham, and in the
negotiations which followed the battle at Edge Hill he
visited Charles at Oxford, as one of the Parliamentary
Commissioners. It is supposed that during this visit
the pltft was arranged. Lord Clarendon is confident
that Waller and his brother-in-law Tomkins were con-
cerned only in raising a strong party of opposition to
the war, and to the taxation by which war was to be
supported ; and that the plan of an armed insurrection
was known only to Sir Nicholas Crisp, Lord Conway,
and their partisans. Later historians, however, do not
accept this distinction ; and certainly Waller's conduct,
on the discovery of the plot, was that of a man who
knew that he deserved death. He saved himself by
denouncing his friends and by an abject apology to the
House of Commons, from which he was expelled, and
he was soon afterwards permitted to leave the country
on payment of J?l 0,000. He settled for a time at Rouen,
where he married a second wife, who bore him a large
family, and who seems to have done nothing to deserve
Dr. Johnson's epigram that
" Waller doubtless praised some whom he would have been
afraid to marry, and perhaps married one whom he would
have been ashamed to praise."
WHICHCOTE AND CONTEMPORARIES 141
From Rouen he moved to Paris, and eventually
obtained leave to return to England, and to live at
Hall Barn, near Beaconsfield. It is probable that his
escape in 1643 and his return from exile in 1653 were
partly due to the fact that he was a nephew of
Hampden and cousin of Cromwell. After the Restora-
tion he made two attempts to get the Provostship of
Eton. In 1665 it was promised to him by Charles II. ;
but Lord Clarendon refused to seal the deed on the
ground that the office could not be filled by a layman.
In 1681 a similar objection was made by the Privy
Council. In Parliament, of which he was so constantly
a member that it was said " It was no House if Waller
was not there, 11 his wit and social qualities made him a
great favourite. He lived till 1687. An eminent
historian has described him as a type of the loose
morals of the Restoration period. That Waller was
mean-spirited and unscrupulous, and that his poetry
was venal, it would be useless to deny ; but the charge
of dissolute habits seems to rest on some assertions of
Sir Simonds D'Ewes, whose austere Puritanism and
rather narrow mind prevent our placing complete con-
fidence in his j udgment. It is remarkable that Clarendon,
himself a man of strict morality and no friend to Waller,
says nothing to confirm these stories. From one of the
Restoration vices Waller was certainly free, for he was
a confirmed water-drinker, a fault which some of his
friends could hardly pardon. Indeed Lord Halifax
said, " there was only one man in England he would
allow to stay in the room with him unless he drank,
and that man was Ned Waller." A man's writings are
perhaps no certain index of his character; yet it is
142 . KING'S COLLEGE
remarkable that, if Waller's poems are often prosaic, he
hardly wrote a line which can be accused of indelicacy.
Though he was but a third-rate poet, yet his position
in English literature, as Mr. Gosse has shown, was of
first-rate importance. It is indeed strange that he,
rather than his contemporary Milton, should have de-
termined the character of English poetry for more than
a century. The "native woodnotes wild" of the
Elizabethan writers were now to be superseded by the
rhymed couplets which Waller brought into fashion.
It was his duty, as Mr. Gosse has said, " to capture and
imprison the imagination, to seize English poetry by
the wings, and to shut it up in a cage for a hundred
and fifty years. 11 And the thoughts, which he himself
had to express, were generally of so tame and common-
place a kind that such confinement was not inconvenient.
Yet one or two of his songs are charming, and his
panegyric of the Protector has been highly praised. It
was, at any rate, so superior to what he wrote in
welcome of Charles II.. that the King made a remark to
that effect. "Sir, 11 replied Waller, "we poets never
succeed so well in writing truth as in fiction." One
thing at least we owe to Waller. If he had not lived
and written, we should have lost the most brilliant of
Dr. Johnson's biographies.
It is a relief, however, to turn from the time-serving
poet to two men whose character and career need no
apology. In John Pearson and William Oughtred the
College may fairly claim to possess the most eminent
theologian and mathematician of their generation in
this country. Pearson was fortunate in being brought
under the influence of two such men as Sir Henry
WHICHCOTE AND CONTEMPORARIES 143
Wotton and John Hales while at Eton. As a boy, he
is said to have spent all his money on books ; and, by
stealing hours from the night, to have read most of
the Greek and Latin Fathers before he left school. At
College he was equally industrious ; and
" finding that the fireside diverted the intention of his
thoughts and dulled his spirits, he avoided coming near it as
much as possible, contented to sit close to his books with a
blanket thrown over his shoulders."
The Latin verses which he wrote in 1632, while still an
undergraduate, and those which he contributed five
years later as a memorial to Henry King, show both
scholarship and poetical feeling. In 1640 he was made
a Prebendary of Salisbury, and thereupon resigned his
Fellowship, though he continued for a time to reside in
College as a Fellow- Commoner.
It was at Cambridge that in 1643 he preached before
the University a memorable sermon in defence of forms
of prayer. The use of the English Prayer Book was
already threatened by the Assembly of Divines at
Westminster, and Pearson came forward in its defence
as Richard Cox had done at Frankfort a century before
him. He protests against the men who " instead of the
buyers and sellers would whip the very prayers out of
the temple, with their new divinity sweeping out all
good Christianity." And he asks whether Creeds also
are henceforth to be extempore. " Shall we stand up
and begin with ' I believe ' at a venture ? " After this
declaration of war, it was only natural that he should
be deprived of his Prebend, and of a Rectory which he
held in Suffolk. In 1645 he was acting as Chaplain to
144 KING'S COLLEGE
Lord Goring's forces at Exeter, and in the following
year he was in London engaged in controversy with
Roman Catholics. But it was during the later years
of the Commonwealth that his best known book was
written. The parishioners of St. Clement's, East Cheap,
had made him their Lecturer in 1654, and he began a
series of sermons which were published in 1659 as an
Exposition of the Creed. He does not seem to have
been disturbed in these labours, and this may have
been because he was now defending doctrines which
were, for the most part, the common property of all
Christendom.
After the Restoration his preferment was rapid.
Within two years he became Master of Jesus, Mar-
garet Professor of Divinity, and Master of Trinity.
He took a prominent part in the Savoy Conference of
1661, and the Puritan Divines recognised in him at
once their ablest and most conciliatory antagonist.
Baxter says that
" he was their true logician and disputant, without whom,
as far as I could discern, we should have had nothing but
Dr. Gunning's passionate invectives. . . . He disputed
accurately, soberly, and calmly, being but once in a passion,
breeding in us a great respect for him, and a persuasion
that if he had been independent he would have been for
peace, and that if all were in his power it would have gone
well."
Pearson's later years belong to the history of Trinity
College (for he resigned his Mastership of Jesus in
1662). There he lived till he became Bishop of Chester
in 1672, and there he wrote his second masterpiece, in
WHICHCOTE AND CONTEMPORARIES 145
defence of the genuineness of the seven letters of
Ignatius. Taking advantage of Usher's discoveries, he
practically settled the question till it was reopened in
the nineteenth century. So great a scholar as Bentley
has told us that the " very dust " of Pearson's writings
" is gold." Certainly he combined a wide and accurate
knowledge with a sober and well-balanced judgment ;
and he created a tradition of thoroughness and modera-
tion which has not been forgotten by Cambridge
theologians of more modern times.
William Oughtred belongs to an earlier generation
than Pearson. He was a boy at Eton in the year of
the Spanish Armada, and a Fellow of King's while
Elizabeth was still on the throne ; but his principal
work, Clavis Mathematics, or The Key of the Mathe-
matics new forged and filed, was not written till 1631,
nor much known till some years later. It is a syste-
matic text-book, in Latin, on Algebra and Arithmetic,
into which were introduced for the first time the symbols
for multiplication and proportion. Although Oughtred
was " much courted to reside in Italy, France, and
Holland," it was long before he became famous in his
own country. He had left the University in 1605, and
after 1610 lived at Albury in Surrey, a parish of which
he was Rector. There he received a visit from two
clever young Cambridge men, one of whom was Seth
Ward, afterwards Bishop of Salisbury, and well known
as an astronomer. Being interested in the study of
mathematics, they came "to be informed of many
things in his Clavis, which at that time seemed very
obscure to them." And, indeed, Oughtred himself,
when accused of obscurity, had been content to reply,
146 KING'S COLLEGE
" non oscitantibus scrips! sed vere Matheseos Candi-
datis " ; but he welcomed two such visitors as these, and
had no difficulty in satisfying them. On their return
to Cambridge, they proceeded to introduce the book
there, and to lecture on it to their pupils.
Oughtred's habits, according to his son's account,
were rather irregular and eccentric.
"He did use to lye abed till 11 or 12 o'clock with his
doublet on. He studied late at night ; on the top of his
bed-staffe he had his inkhorn fixt."
Sometimes he " went not to bed for 2 or 3 nights, and
would not come down to meals till he had found out
the quaesitum." These habits did not impair his
health ; for at the age of eighty he could handle his
instruments as steadily as at that of thirty, a fact which
he himself attributed to "temperance and archery."
Newton calls him " that very good and judicious man,
whose judgment (if any man's) may be safely relyed
upon." He was threatened with sequestration in 1645,
but escaped by the intervention of powerful friends ;
and the close of the Commonwealth period found him
still at Albury. If, as is said, he died of joy on hearing
of the Restoration, his death was not quite sudden, or
else the news travelled slowly to Albury ; for he lived
till June 30, 1660; and the King was proclaimed at
Westminster on May 8, though he did not enter London
till May 29.
CHAPTER XI
THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH
EVEN in the days of Provost Goad the Fellows had
shown some discontent with their share of the College
revenues. The value of money had fallen, and they
found their statutable allowances insufficient. The
sympathy which was shewn to Edmund Hinde, when he
refused to resign his Fellowship on succeeding to
property worth 5 a year, was probably due to a con-
viction that the Founder's estimate of wealth had
become antiquated. Meantime the College revenues
were increasing, though it is not easy to explain all the
causes of this increase. It can hardly have been due
to greater productiveness in their landed property, for
the improvements made in farming during the seven-
teenth century, by the cultivation of turnips and clover
and the folding of sheep, had as yet hardly begun.
Moreover, the custom of granting leases on easy terms
to some favoured Fellows, when they left College, must
have been a constant drain on the revenues. This
practice, however, received a check in 1630, when the
Visitor forbade the granting of leases by way of " Vales,"
unless there was a balance of 1000 marks in the treasury,
and unless an amount equivalent in value to the lease
was given to every Fellow leaving the College and not
148 KING'S COLLEGE
beneficed. The discontinuance of this practice would,
of course, increase the resources of the College. As the
habit of non-residence gradually grew, there must have
been a diminution in the cost of commons ; and it is
probable that during the Civil War and Commonwealth
the College was never full. On the other hand, some
loss must have been incurred by the difficulty of col-
lecting dues.
When the value of money sank, the amounts demanded
in fines and rents rose. Thus the income of the Ruislip
Estate, which in 1607 was 52, rose to 213 in 1664 ;
and the whole income of the College, which stood at
in 1583, rose during the next half-century to
There must have been some corresponding
increase in the sums paid by the College for commons
and service ; but as some of the payments due from the
College to its own members were fixed by Statute, this
change in the value of money also helped to create a
surplus, at the expense of the emoluments of individual
Fellows.
As early as 1614 a custom began of dividing money
at the sealing of leases, out of the fines paid on the
renewal of a lease. As a general rule each Fellow
received 5*. ; but sometimes the share of the different
members varied with their degrees or seniority. In
1648 it was agreed that out of every =100 received as
fine, 5 should be treated as divisible.
But, besides the fines, some irregular division of other
moneys had already been practised by the Seniors,
according to their own admission ; and on December 8,
1648, the whole College agreed to recognise and adopt
this practice, and they fixed the proportion which the
THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH 149
different classes of the Society should henceforth receive
both of dividend and fines. A few months later, the
Provost's salary was raised to ^280, and as the Seniors
were thought to have surrendered some of their emolu-
ments under the recent settlement, certain fees, which
they had been accustomed to receive from manorial
courts held in Hampshire and elsewhere, were secured
to them and to the Provost for the future.
The amount of money treated as dividend in each
year varied greatly ; in the seven years 1648-1654 it
averaged ^1680 ; but nothing like this amount was
maintained during the rest of the century. One cause
of these exceptional receipts may have been the price of
wheat, which for a few years was extraordinarily high.
A law, passed in Elizabeth's reign, had obliged Colleges
to receive one-third of their rents in kind, or in the
actual money value of the corn and produce specified in
the lease. This part of the rent was of course greatly
enhanced, when wheat rose to the famine prices of T7s.
and 85$. per quarter, and the increased cost of provisions
would only partially counterbalance the gain. It is also
possible that, in their uncertainty how a new revolution
might affect them, the Society became somewhat im-
provident, and divided more than was consistent with
true husbandry. This was certainly the case at Eton,
where the Puritan Fellows introduced the custom of
charging all extraordinary expenses to capital, and of
dividing the surplus income of each year among them-
selves, a policy which is said to have brought the College
within sight of bankruptcy.
The settlement with respect to dividends was of great
importance to the College, because henceforth it became
150 KING'S COLLEGE
an object of ambition to every Kingsman to keep his *
Fellowship, even if he went permanently out of residence.
As yet such non-residence was probably exceptional ;
but in 1674 the Junior Fellows objected to their Seniors
receiving " Perception " money, which had originally
been paid for transacting College business (" ob perci-
pienda Collegii negotia "), on the ground that some of the
Seniors had been absent from the College for many
years. By degrees the old home of poor residents
changed into a College of Fellows, some of whom were
habitually absentees, and few, strictly speaking, poor.
One thing was still wanting to complete the transform-
ation. The Statutes enjoined the Provost and Deans
to see that all Fellows, except the four who studied
medicine and Civil Law, should take Holy Orders
within a fixed number of years from their first degree.
In course of time this injunction was disregarded, and
the Fellows remained laymen, unless they had a special
interest in theology, or desired the College or University
privileges attached to Divinity degrees, or unless they
looked forward to pastoral work, which generally took
the form of a College Living.
Every one of these alterations was in direct contra-
vention of the Statutes ; there was no ambiguity in the
limit of sixty days as the maximum amount of absence
from College allowed in each year, nor as to the time
when Fellows should become Priests. It might have
been reasonable to increase the stipends and allowances
specified in the Statutes on the ground that the value of
money had altered greatly in the course of two centuries ;
but the provisions of the Statutes clearly required that
all surplus money should be paid into the common
THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH 151
purse and used for the common good of the Society. It
is rather remarkable that neither Fellows nor Visitor
felt any scruple about these revolutionary proceedings.
The revolution may have been salutary and even
necessary, but in modern days it would have been
effected by a change of Statute. In the seventeenth
century it was easier to break Statutes than to amend
them.
The settlement of the dividend did not, however,
settle all controversies ; for when Bishop Fuller visited
the College in September 1674, he found the old
quarrels between Seniors and Juniors still rife. It
seemed to him that a decision given by Bishop Williams,
as Visitor, was partly the cause of this. Williams had
introduced a new interpretation of the 46th Statute,
and ordered that in transacting business, the places of
any absent Seniors should be filled by those next in
standing. The episcopal seal had never been affixed to
this order, and it had soon been disregarded. The
Juniors naturally wished Bishop Fuller to reaffirm it.
But he thought the old interpretation was the better
one. A case had lately happened which illustrated
this. In 1665 the Provost, yielding to the importunity
of some of the Fellows, invited the Society to pass a
vote for a dividend. The majority of the Seniors
present, foreseeing that this would cause a debt of
d1200, opposed. All the Juniors and a minority of
the Seniors supported the proposal. According to
Bishop Williams's " supplementary caution," it would
now have been proper for the Provost to summon the
thirteen seniors in residence, whether technically Senior
Fellows or not, in order to settle the question. This
152 KING'S COLLEGE
was not done, and no dividend was voted. As it was
not till 1668 that there was enough money for a
dividend, and then only owing to a windfall, the
College was seen to have had a narrow escape.
The Junior party appeared to be on stronger ground
when they objected to the custom by which the Seniors
received certain fees derived from the Manorial Courts?
as well as a payment " in loco Ministratorum." Mention
has been made in a former chapter of the fact that
certain Seniors had Servitors to wait on them. The
Servitor received the "diet left at the table," and
actually paid the Senior ^6 a year for it. The practice
was contrary to the Statutes and had been abolished ;
yet instead of the old perquisite each Senior now re-
ceived his 6 directly from the College. The Seniors
justified this by enumerating the privileges which they
had given up; among these, the fires in the Parlour
before dinner and supper in the winter, which had been
discontinued in order that fires might be maintained in
the Hall, of which the Juniors also had the benefit.
In particular, they pointed out that the abolition of
Servitors had set free a house called the Pensionary ; for
which the College now received rent and fines.
Another charge brought by the Juniors was, that
the office of Sacrist, ordered by the Statutes, had been
dropped. The Sacrist had care of the vessels belonging
to the Chapel, and (so it was alleged) visited the sick.
According to the Juniors, for want of a Sacrist the
sick " upon their deathbeds have often wanted and in
vain desired his assistance, which high and unchristian
neglect ... we humbly submit to your Lordship's
pious and prudent consideration." To this the Seniors
THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH 153
replied that the Sacrist had never had anything to do
with the sick, and that, as a matter of fact, these were
well cared for by the Priests living in College. He had
charge of Books, Chalices, Crosses, Reliques, Vestments,
Torches, and Tapers ; and " considering the change of
religion and the few sacred utensils we now have, which
are no other than what are daily exposed upon the
Communion Table," it seemed quite unnecessary to
revive the old office.
The Seniors had no difficulty in making out a list of
offences committed by the Juniors, such as the frequent-
ing of alehouses and taverns, not only singly but in
great companies, their dining and supping in the parlour,
and their insisting on having " flesh " upon fish days.
The undergraduate Fellows, soon after their election,
were in the habit of entertaining both B.A.s and M.A.s
at the taverns :
" to an extravagant expense and an initiation into intem-
perance. The like is done by several of the B.A.s and
M.A.s on the Founder's Day, having the University
Musique with them, so that they come not to Divine
Service and do frequently sit up all or the greatest part of
the night."
The Provost also having made a complaint as to
" excesses in apparel," the Fellows were ordered by the
Visitor to wear only black.
The Provost, at this time, was James Fleetwood, who
had done good service to the royal cause during the
war, and was Chaplain to Prince Charles, so that he
was an obvious person to choose for the office ; although
John Price, Chaplain and intimate friend of General
154 KING'S COLLEGE
Monk, who has left us a curious account of the part
which he himself and his general took in the Restora-
tion, may have thought his claim to a reward as great
as that of Fleet wood.
It must have been a sad day to some of the Fellows,
when Benjamin Whichcote quitted the College, over
which he had ruled so well, and within a few months
the Society shewed their esteem for him by presenting
him to the sinecure Rectory of Milton. There is hardly
a trace of any other ejection. Thomas Crouch was
now readmitted to his Fellowship, but resigned it
immediately in favour of another member of the
Crouch family. Thomas had at first turned his atten-
tion to theology, and in 1633 had been admonished by
the Vice-Provost for defending the Invocation of Saints
as Respondent in a Disputation in Chapel, and it seems
that he refused to retract and was discommuned for a
week. He was twice Proctor, and there is a portrait
of him at King's Lodge in his official dress. When
ejected from his Fellowship in 1650 he had found a
home in Trinity Hall. In 1660 he became M.P. for
the University, and was most active in defending the
rights of his constituents. Indeed, in 1674, when the
London printers threatened to interfere with the
privileges of the University Printers, the Vice-Chancellor
of Oxford looked to Crouch as the best champion whom
he could find. He was a benefactor to his College
Library, and contributed liberally to the cost of the
canopies which were placed over'the stalls in the Chapel
during the last years of his life, 1675-78. The inscrip-
tion over his tomb in one of the side Chapels bears no
name, but only the words :
THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH 155
" Aperiet Deus tumulos et educet
Nos de Sepulchris.
Qualis eram Dies istaec cum
Venerit scies."
During the Commonwealth period Roger Palmer
entered King's as a Fellow-Commoner. He was too
young to bear arms in the Civil War, but he freely
hazarded his life in the plots which preceded the
Restoration. His home life was spoiled by the con-
duct of his wife Barbara, who became a Mistress of
Charles II., and the Irish peerage of Castlemaine,
obtained for him by her influence, was no consolation
for this misfortune. He became a wanderer, first cruis-
ing in the Levant with the Venetian squadron, then
serving in the Duke of York's fleet in the Dutch
war, and afterwards travelling to Syria and Africa.
Apparently he was safer, as well as happier, abroad
than at home; for on his return to England, about
1677, he was denounced by Titus Oates as a Jesuit,
and accused of plotting against the King's life. After
half a year's imprisonment in the Tower, he was tried,
and defended himself so well that even Chief Justice
Scroggs was obliged to acquit him ; but his escape was
partly due to the zeal and courage of another Kings-
man, John Lytcott, who had been his companion
abroad. Lord Castlemaine was a Roman Catholic,
and as such was chosen by James II., in 1686, to
establish relations with Innocent XI. at Rome. Such
a course did not happen to suit the Pope, who ter-
minated the audience by a violent fit of coughing, and
told Lord Castlemaine that the early hours were best
for travelling. When James fled, Lord Castlemaine
156 KING'S COLLEGE
retired to his home in Montgomeryshire, but he was
arrested and committed to the Tower again on the
capital charge of endeavouring to reconcile the Kingdom
to the See of Rome ; nor was this his last visit to the
Tower. He was a man of letters, as well as of action ;
for he wrote a memoir of the Dutch war in French, and
of the war between Turkey and Venice in English ;
besides publishing a manly and eloquent vindication of
the loyalty of English Roman Catholics. He seems to
have deserved a better wife and better fortune than
fell to his lot : for he was constantly in trouble, in
spite of his abilities and loyalty.
When Fleetwood became Bishop of Worcester in
1675, Sir Thomas Page succeeded him as Provost. He
had been Tutor to the virtuous Lord Ossory, the friend
of Evelyn, and he afterwards acted as Private Secretary
to Lord Ossory "s father, the Duke of Ormonde, when
the latter was Lord Lieutenant in Ireland. Little is
recorded of Page, except that he was a traveller and a
linguist, and an amiable and accomplished bachelor,
who gave some valuable Communion plate to the
College, of which only a silver basket in filigree work
now remains. He is said to have died suddenly, on
August 8, 1681, in the act of rebuking an irregular
Scholar. Of his successor, John Copleston, there is
even less to tell. He was born at Lyme, and had the
living of Chagford, and he is called " a good Preacher
and an honest man." His last act, and, indeed, the only
one recorded of him as Provost, was his administering
to all his Fellows, in July 1689, the oaths against the
right of the Pope to excommunicate Princes, and against
Transubstantiation.
THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH 157
His death, in this year, gave the Fellows the oppor-
tunity of recovering their right to choose their own
Provost : for resistance to a newly established dynasty
might prove easier than it had been to a Tudor or a
Stuart. The account of what happened is told by a
Mr. Reynolds, who was admitted Scholar of King's in
1689, and was afterwards Fellow of Eton and Canon of
Exeter. Before the Fellows could meet for an election,
one of their number, John Hartcliffe, had posted off to
Court to warn the authorities. The College records
have no mercy for this " false brother " ; but he must
have been a man of some note, for he had been Head-
master of Merchant Taylors School, and was afterwards
chosen by Tillotson for a Canonry at Windsor. The
result of his journey was that an order came to Cam-
bridge for the election of Stephen Upman,* Fellow of
Eton. The choice was an unfortunate one, for Upman
had preached in Eton Chapel in favour of the toleration
granted by King James to Roman Catholics as well as
to Protestant Dissenters, and Reynolds adds :
"I who was then in the 6 th Form was present at the
sermon ; and I remember that the boys could not help
observing in the faces of the Fellows and Masters there
present, scorn in some, and indignation in others."
It was therefore easy for the Kingsmen to represent
Upman as no true Whig. Accordingly a new order
was issued, in favour of Sir Isaac Newton, at that time
M.P. for the University. Against so great and good a
man the only possible objections were that he was an
alien and a layman ; and these objections were made,
* See Appendix D.
158 KING'S COLLEGE
Once more the Crown sent down a fresh order, this
time for the election of John Hartcliffe himself. This
was the most unpopular choice of all. No one would
appear to receive the mandamus, which was left on the
Hall table and was thrown over the wall in the night.
On September 3 the Fellows met and elected Charles
Roderick, then Headmaster of Eton. At the same
time they took the precaution of writing to Lord
Nottingham, asking him to represent to the King their
objections to John Hartcliffe. Still they could hardly
hope to escape from a law-suit, and they prepared to
meet the expense, by promising to forego their dividends,
turn their plate into money, and strike off the "second
dish " at dinner.
They did, however, succeed in obtaining an interview,
which was held at Hampton Court. Three of the
Society went there, and were arguing the case with the
Crown lawyers, when there was a sudden hush and a
whisper that the Queen was coming through the gallery.
One of the Kingsmen, Dr. Layton, being rather deaf
and very blind, did not perceive this, and at the critical
moment struck the table with his fist, and cried out in
a loud voice, " Mr. Attorney General, if we must bear
the grievances of former reigns, then is the King in vain
come in."" Queen Mary was startled by this speech,
and the interview was brought to a sudden and not
very promising end. However, soon afterwards, the
King, on his way to Newmarket, paid a visit to King's
College Chapel, attended by the Chancellor, the Duke
of Somerset, when he told the College that, at the
intercession of his friend the Duke, he gave his consent
that the man they had chosen should be their Provost.
THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH 159
On this, Layton, who was prepared beforehand, made a
speech of thanks to the King on his knees. Roderick
was now " admitted " by " old Gearing, who saving one
year had been Vice-Provost for 40 successive years, and
had admitted Roderick to his Scholarship."
The battle was won by the College ; and no doubt
the right was on their side. But whether it was worth
winning is more doubtful. The College had owed much
to such aliens as Sir John Cheke and Whichcote. If
they could have secured Sir Isaac Newton as their Head,
the presence of such a man must have done something
to stimulate intellectual life. And before long such a
stimulus was sadly wanted. During the eighteenth
century the University reached its lowest point, both in
numbers and learning. It was hardly possible that
King's should escape the torpor of the times ; but most
of the Provosts appointed by the College, though
estimable and, in some cases, able men, had neither the
width of experience nor the force of intellect which
were necessary to withstand the depressing influences of
the Hanoverian period. It would be rash to assert that
a system of unrestricted choice by the Crown would
have supplied the College with men of light and
leading ; but it is at least a remarkable coincidence that
about this time the College ceased to hold the high
place in the University which it had consistently main-
tained throughout the Tudor and Stuart periods,
CHAPTER XII
GIBBS'S BUILDING
CHARLES RODERICK, the new Provost, had been a suc-
cessful Headmaster of Eton since 1680 ; and this, in
spite of an excessive modesty, which had induced him
to resign the Rectory of Raynham in Norfolk because
he could not face the ordeal of preaching to a country
congregation, though he wrote many sermons. Perhaps
it was the same bashfulness which prevented him from
marrying till late in life, when his sufferings from gout
seemed to need the care of a nurse rather than the
companionship of a wife. His character is thus
described by a contemporary :
"He labour' d more his worth to hide
Than others to have their' s descri'd ;
The brightest Preachers that we have
Do but reflect the light he gave.
From these great Pupils may be seen
How great the Tutor must have been."
Another contemporary and less complimentary writer
describes Roderick as "an overgrown Pedagog who
never mounted a pulpit,' 1 and as one of "the five
Smoking Heads."
The fact that he was made Dean of Ely in 1708 may
GIBBS'S BUILDING 161
be taken as some evidence that his abilities were of a
solid though not of a showy kind.
The two Kingsmen, who accompanied Dr. Layton to
the Hampton Court conference, both rose to some
eminence. John Newborough succeeded Roderick at
Eton. Under his excellent teaching and able manage-
ment the School flourished greatly, and he was the
first person to discover and encourage the talents of
Robert Walpole. The third of the party at Hampton
Court was William Fleetwood, nephew of Provost
Fleetwood, who, unlike Roderick, was so celebrated a
London preacher that he was known as "the silver-
tongued." Queen Anne was one of his admirers, and
spoke of him as " my Bishop " ; and she was right in
her judgment, for he was much more than a mere
preacher. His administration of his diocese (for he
became Bishop of St. Asaph in 1708) was exemplary,
and he seems in all respects to have been the model
Bishop of his days. Yet even he could not keep out of
the field of politics. It was the time of the Tory and
High Church reaction; and Fleetwood, in publishing
some sermons, took the opportunity, in May 1712, to
write a preface, in which he attributed the failure of
the Tories to obtain satisfactory terms of peace to the
political distractions caused by themselves.
" God, for our sins, permitted the spirit of discord to go
forth, and by troubling sore the camp, the city, and the
country, (and oh ! that it had altogether spared the places
sacred to his worship), to spoil for a time this beautiful and
pleasing prospect, and give us in its stead I know not
what. Our enemies will tell the rest with pleasure."
L
162 KING'S COLLEGE
This preface, containing as it did a vindication of
William and Mary, and upholding the principles of
the Revolution as against the doctrine of Non-Resist-
ance, was so displeasing to the party then in office that
it was burned by order of the House of Commons.
Persecution, as usual, brought popularity; and the
preface was reprinted by Steele in the Spectator for
May 21, 1712 ; and thus about 14,000 copies were con-
veyed into the hands of people that might otherwise
have never seen it nor heard of it. The accession of
George I. naturally brought Fleetwood into favour
again at Court, and in 1714 he became Bishop of Ely.
It was a critical moment in the long controversy
between Dr. Bentley and his College. The late Bishop
of Ely, Dr. Moore, had just drawn up a sentence of
ejection against the Master of Trinity ; but Fleetwood,
who had reason to think ill of the character of some of
Dr. Bentley's prosecutors, declared that, if he visited
Trinity College at all, it should be to execute impartial
justice on all delinquencies, whether of Master or Fellows.
As it had been recently decided that the general Visi-
tatorial power belonged to the Crown, Fleetwood's
announcement was in fact a refusal to take any action
in the case.
When Fleetwood became Bishop of Ely, there was
some expectation that another Kingsman might be pre-
ferred to him. This was George Stanhope, who had
been a Royal Chaplain and Boyle Lecturer, and was
since 1704 Dean of Canterbury. He was well known
both as a preacher and as a writer of practical theology,
and he seems to have thoroughly deserved the respect
and affection which were generally felt for him.
GIBBS'S BUILDING 163
It was during Roderick's tenure of the Provostship
that the oldest and only surviving son of the great
Duke of Marlborough came to King's College as a
Fellow-Commoner, and was placed under the care of
Francis Hare, of whom more will be said hereafter.
Even allowing for the exaggerations, which are probable
in such a case, the Marquis of Blandford seems to have
been a lad of excellent disposition and no little promise.
He was exemplary in conforming to the rules of his
College, and in a letter to Lord Godolphin he expresses
the warmest approbation both of the studies and dis-
cipline of the place. But in the autumn of 1702 there
was an alarm of smallpox, and he went for change of
air to Newmarket. It was after his return to Cambridge
that he was attacked by a malignant form of the disease.
His brother-in-law, Francis Godolphin, was a member
of the College, and in Cambridge at the time. The
Duchess of Marlborough hurried to Cambridge, and
sent back to London for medical advice But neither
a letter from the Queen to her " dear Mrs. Freeman/'
nor the despatch of Dr. Haines and Dr. Coladon from
the Lord Treasurer's house in a hackney-coach with six
horses, could save the poor boy. His father came in
time to see him before his death on February 20, 1703,
and then returned with a heavy heart to the campaign
on the Meuse and Rhine. Lord Blandford's monu-
ment in one of the side Chapels, where he lies, attests
the affection of his parents rather than their artistic
taste.
During Queen Anne's reign party feeling, whether in
politics or theology, was at fever heat. Dr. Tudway,
Professor <>f Music and Organist of King's, thinking
164 KING'S COLLEGE
that the Ministry was showing too much favour to
Dissenters, allowed himself in public company to make
a bad pun on Queen Anne, and he was deprived for a
time both of his degrees and of all his offices. A few
years later the Lucasian Professor, William Whiston,
was cited to appear before Roderick, then Vice-
Chancellor, at King's Lodge, charged with having
publicly maintained Arian tenets, and was banished
from the University for heresy. It was also a time of
transition in University studies, for Newton's Principia
now began to form the subject-matter of exercises in
the schools and afterwards of examination for degrees.
Edward Littleton, who went to King's in 1716,
expressed his disgust at the neglect of classics in a
poetic epistle to his friend Archer :
"Now, Algebra, Geometry,
Arithmetic, Astronomy,
Optics, Chronology, and Statics,
All tiresome points of Mathematics,
With twenty harder names than these
Disturb my brains and break my peace."
And he proceeds to describe how he is learning that
ink is not black, and that a fire possesses no heat.
The records which remain of another Kingsman,
William Batty, throw some further light on the studies
and discipline of the College about this time. In spite
of Littleton's complaints, Batty at any rate did not
give up his classics, and was the first Kingsman who
gained the Craven Scholarship in 1724; not, indeed,
without difficulty, for the Examiners were equally
divided between him and Bentley of Trinity. The
GIBBS'S BUILDING 165
nomination lapsed to Lord Craven, who six months
later gave the Scholarship to Batty. Batty by this
time had given up all thoughts of it ; but, feeling that
with this addition he could live on his Fellowship, he
proceeded to lay out a fresh course of reading, which
included the study of Newton, English and modern
history, and some law.
Batty's great rival at Eton had been one Thomas
Morell. They came to King's about the same time,
where they still continued to torment each other.
Morell writes:
" His mother very kindly recommended us to a Chandler
at 4*. 6d. per dozen. But, as the candles proved dear even
at that price we resented it; and one evening, getting
into Battle's room before Canonical hours,* we locked him
out and stuck up all the candles we could find in his box,
lighted, round the room ; and while I thrummed on the
spinnet, the rest danced round me in their shirts. Upon
Battle's coming and finding what we were at, he fell
to storming and swearing, till the old Vice Provost
Dr. Willymott called out from above, ' Who is that swear-
ing like a common soldier ? ' 'It is I,' quoth Battie.
' Visit me,' quoth the Vice Provost, which indeed we were
all obliged to do next morning, with a distich, according to
custom. Mine naturally turned upon ' So fiddled Orpheus
and so danced the Brutes ' ; which having explained to the
Vice Provost, he punished me and Sleech with a few lines
of Homer and Battie with the whole third book of Milton
to get by heart.''
* " Canonical hours " lasted from the close of morning chapel to
8 A.M., and from 8 P.M. to 9 P.M. During these periods it was the
duty of the Junior of each Chamber to keep the door shut and
exclude strangers.
166 KING'S COLLEGE
Batty afterwards forsook the study of law for that of
medicine, and became a doctor of some eminence. He
was already engaged in this profession when, in 1729,
he edited Isocrates. His criticisms on that author did
not satisfy Morell, who wrote an epigram ending with
the following lines :
" Confine yourself to licence given
Nor dare beyond your trade,
Tho' you are free to kill the living,
Yet prythee spare the dead."
After this, it may be hoped that Morell left his old
schoolfellow alone.
In 1712 John Adams had succeeded to the Provost-
ship ; he does not seem to have taken a prominent part
in University politics, although he had to make a Latin
speech to George I. when that King paid a flying visit
to Cambridge on October 6, 1717. The seven years of
his Provostship are chiefly noticeable from the fact that
a serious effort was now made to enlarge the College
buildings.
The old Court had never really sufficed for the wants
of the College, and from the earliest days some buildings
near the present Porter's Lodge had been set apart as
the " Clerks 1 Lodging " and gone by the name of the
"Conductes 1 Court." More than a century later, in
1571 or 1574, the Hall of St. Austin's Hostel, which
stood on ground now occupied by the College Hall, was
fitted up as rooms for Fellow-Commoners and styled
" the Pensionary " ; and in the north-west corner of the
old Court itself two chambers for Fellows were gained
by building a tower, and so enlarging what had served
GIBBS'S BUILDING 167
as a Library till Provost Goad removed the books to
the southern side Chapels.
But in the seventeenth century the improvement in
the College property and the demand for a higher
standard of comfort must have been felt as reasons for
attempting something more ambitious ; indeed, a MS.
account of the " state of King's College relating to their
present design of building " remarks that the
" old unfinished building having been slightly patch'd up
at several times has grown more and more inconvenient
and more unwholesome, there being but 27 rooms in it for
the 70 Fellows and Scholars ; some of which rooms are of
lath work, 8 more of them ground chambers, and most of
them very dark, damp, and unwholesome, being about 2
feet underground."
A letter from Lord Dartmouth to Provost Copleston
on March 14, 1686, reminding the latter of " his good
Disposition to attempt something towards y* Building
of our College," is evidence of the conviction which was
gradually forcing itself on the minds of Kingsmen.
Lord Dartmouth writes :
" I shou'd think it a great Addition to y e Happiness of my
Life to see a Work so necessary for your own Convenience
to go Forward in his Majesty's Reign. Begin therefore a
Found among yourselves either by cutting down Timber
(w ch cannot be dispos'd of to a better use) or what other
ways your Prudence shall think best ; And if you shall
think fitt to lett me know your Proceedings, when this
Design shall be reduc'd to some Method and Ripeness, I
will not be wanting on my own Part, and to recommend
both it and your selves to his Majesty's gracious Patron-
age."
168 KING'S COLLEGE
The writer of this letter, "Honest and faithful
George Legge," as James II. called him, had entered
King's College from Westminster School, and in 1683
became Baron Dartmouth. He gained great reputation
by his services in the Dutch war, and was Admiral in
command of the fleet when William crossed the Channel.
But, though his own loyalty was above suspicion, and
his courage had been shown by driving the Dutch out
of his ship when on the point of sinking and by after-
wards bringing her safe into harbour, he was unable to
strike a blow at the critical moment on behalf of his
master, because his Captains had adopted the Orange
cause. This failure did not, however, save him from
being accused of treasonable practices, and he died in
the Tower, 1691. He was very popular with the sailors,
who raised something like a riot when they thought
that he was being ill-treated in his prison, and could
only be pacified by his personal assurance that this was
not so. Bishop Burnet says that he was the worthiest
nobleman in King James's Court, to whose fortunes he
always adhered, though he had opposed the policy
which was the cause of the King's downfall. His only
son, who rose to be a Secretary of State, was also a
Kingsman, and resembled his father in being a moderate
Tory and a man of high character. Swift said of him
that his only fault was that he " treated his clerks with
more civility and good manners than others in his
station have done the Queen." The first Lord Dart-
mouth's advice to the College did not bear fruit during
Roderick's life. But John Adams, on succeeding to
the Provostship in 1712, exerted himself to the utmost
in promoting the project.
GIBBS'S BUILDING 169
The first step was the creation of a Fund. Not long
before, a fire had destroyed part of the Hall, a chamber,
and some studies ; and with a view to rebuilding these
it was agreed to sell timber out of Toft Monks Wood
in Norfolk, to the value of 500. However, it was
found better to cut down the whole wood; and on
May 8, 1714, a solemn resolution was adopted and
signed by the Provost and eighteen Fellows to the
effect that the .2640 arising from the sale of this
timber, including what was left after repairing the
damage done by the fire, should never be used for any
other purpose than the extension of the College buildings.
Any other money which should hereafter arise from the
sale of timber was, by the same resolution, devoted to the
like purpose.
Adams had meanwhile been doing his best to collect
subscriptions, and to interest the Queen herself in the
project, and he tells the Bursar,
" I have prospect of assistance from private Hands which
I did not expect, and do not doubt but I shal see some
very good effects of their Promises in a few months, tho' I
am often forct to draw back for fear of pressing too far."
Even before the date of the solemn engagement
mentioned above, Adams had gone so far as to consult
Sir Christopher Wren, and to get plans and models
from Hawkesmore, who was one of Wren's pupils. It
was proposed not only to complete the Quadrangle to
the south of the Chapel, but also to build a Cloister and
Bell Tower to the west; to continue the old line of
King's Lane to the river, and on one side of it to place
a new Provost's Lodge and on the other a brewhouse
170 KING'S COLLEGE
and stables. The plans also included bridges and
gardens.
The Provost suggested certain alterations in the
design, which he thought overloaded with ornament ;
and in particular desired that the studies and bedrooms
in the west wing should look towards the river, and not
into the east Court, as Hawkesmore intended. Like
some other architects, Hawkesmore was inclined to
assume that his employers possessed the purse of
Fortunatus, and the Provost writes : " The most ex-
pensive part will be the Cloyster, but it is y e hardest for
Mr. Hawkesmore to part withal."
Adams did not live to see the work begun. But his
efforts in the cause continued to the end ; and in what
seems to be his last letter he refers to a representation
which is to be laid before the Visitor, and to an inter-
view with Lord Townshend :
" My Lord received the Vice Provost and myself with all
kindness and encouragement ; was mightily pleased with
some Plans w ch I carryd with me and w oh I left with
M r Poyntz to shew to M r Wallpool. The two models are
with M r Hawksmore, who may be heard of at Sir John
Vanbrough's, Whitehall. . . . There is no fault in y e
best model, but only as to y e Arcade or front over it. His
fancy is too luxuriant sometimes, but his judgment very
good . . . and if he be not continued as a kind of Surveyor,
His Demands will be very Exorbitant for what he has done
and not been already payd for."
The letter more than once speaks of the writer's
fatigue in consequence of his journey, and his exertions
in the cause may have shortened his life. Antony
Allen tells us that he died at the end of the year 1719
GIBBS'S BUILDING 171
of an apoplexy a few days before he was to have been
introduced to the King, it having been intimated to
the Society that the King would bestow <>200 for the
new building. According to Allen, Adams had in his
younger years contracted heavy debts jointly with
others "embarked in the same cause of prodigality."
Eventually the whole burden "devolved upon the
Doctor, which embarrassed him to that excess that
all his Preferment tho' very considerable was scarce
sufficient to keep him out of Prison. 11 It is added that
he left his wife and children in great want. There
is something very pathetic in the position of a man
devoting himself to raise for the benefit of the College
funds which were sorely needed for his own relief.
From Adamses last letter it seems that the College
already contemplated a change of architect ; and before
January 1723 plans had been obtained of James Gibbs,
and it was determined to begin the west side of the
intended Court, for which Portland stone was used.
According to the new plans the Cloister and other
buildings towards the river were abandoned, but there
was to be an east side corresponding to the one now
to be taken in hand, and a south wing with Hall,
Provost's Lodge, and offices. The west building was
to be adorned with statues ; but the arcades, which had
formed part of Hawkesmore's design, were given up.
It was on March 25, 1724, that the first stone was
actually laid. After hearing a sermon from one of the
Senior Fellows (Gregory Doughty) and an anthem
composed for the occasion by Dr. Tudway, the Vice-
Chancellor, who happened to be Andrew Snape the
new Provost of King's, with the Noblemen, Heads, and
172 KING'S COLLEGE
other members of the University, all joined in the
ceremony. One notable figure was missing. Dr. Bentley
had been suspended from his degrees for the last six
years; and though the Court of King's Bench had
condemned this action of the University, yet the act of
restitution was purposely postponed till March 26, in
order that he might have no part in the ceremony. If
any of the company present were inclined to be super-
stitious, it may have seemed to them of evil omen that
the greatest Scholar of his times should have no share
in wishing God-speed to a building which was intended
to be a home of sacred and profane learning. The
stone actually laid was, by tradition, believed to be one
which, more than 250 years before, the workmen had
left half sawn through when they heard of the deposition
of Henry VI.
It was not till 1730 that the building was ready for
wainscoting, and by that time funds had run short.
Mr. Essex was accordingly employed to do only one
half in the first instance ; but a little later it was
decided that the whole building should be fitted up, if
twenty-four Fellows would undertake to pay 5 each in
rent. They might also underlet their rooms to Fellow-
Commoners for \5. This arrangement was made, and
in 1753 it was found possible to reduce the rent due
from Fellows. The College borrowed money from their
neighbours at Corpus and Peterhouse, and also got the
Visitor's leave to sell the old bells. But what eventually
extinguished the debt was a bequest of Mr. Hungerford,
who left to the College his property of Upavon in Wilt-
shire.
Cole, writing in 1750, expresses his doubts whether
GIBBS'S BUILDING 173
the new building was a real gain to the College.
Admitting that the Society was straitened for room,
and that the building was a great ornament to the
University, he says that these rents were so burdensome
that
" ever since I have inhabited the New Building now about
16 years, not half of the Rooms have been let ; but the
Fellows chose rather to inhabit the old Building, where
they pay nothing for their Chambers, and are near the Hall,
and within Reach of the Bedmakers and Servants; the
distance from which makes the New Building very incon-
venient ; besides the new Apartments are so sumptuous
and grand that it requires more than the narrow Appoint-
ment of a Fellow of the College to fit up in such a manner
as would become them ; so that upon the whole it has
been thought that, if a Gothic and less magnificent Building
had been erected, it would have suited the Taste of the
Chapel better, been more convenient for the members, and
there had been a greater Probability of seeing the whole
Quadrangle compleated ; which, as the case now stands,
there seems to be a small Prospect of. Dr. Snape in his
Life Time gave 250 Pounds towards the Design, which it
is supposed in the whole cost 20,000 Pounds."
During the first quarter of the eighteenth century,
Cambridge was much occupied with the eccentricities
of Dr. Bentley, and the names of two Kingsmen are
intimately connected with some circumstances in that
memorable career. These were Antony Collins and
Francis Hare. Collins had been a friend of Locke, and
had already engaged in his first controversy with Dr.
Samuel Clarke before he published, in 1713, his
Discourse of Freethinking, the object of which was
174 KING'S COLLEGE
to shew that all belief should be based on free inquiry,
and that such inquiry would be destructive of orthodox
views. The position and character of Collins made him
a serious antagonist, for he was said to have an " estate
in the country, a library in town, and friends every-
where."" In 1715 he settled in Essex, and made himself
useful as a country magistrate, besides continuing his
controversial writings. Whatever may have been the
value of his philosophy, his scholarship was very defec-
tive ; and Bentley, in an anonymous treatise dedicated
" to my very learned and honoured friend F. H., D.D.,
at London," exposed the mistakes and ignorance of
the Discourse in a merciless manner. Though the
treatise was anonymous, the authorship was no secret ;
and Hare addressed a pamphlet to Bentley, full of
extravagant praise for the labours of the latter, coupled
with a suggestion that Bentley should undertake a new
critical edition of the Scriptures. 'Hare had been some
years senior to Collins at King's, where he had acted as
Tutor to Robert Walpole as well as to the Marquis of
Blandford ; he had afterwards been Chaplain- General
of the army in Flanders, and both a protege and
champion of the Duke of Marlborough. He was now a
Fellow of Eton, who managed to combine High Church
theology with Whig politics. If he had confined him-
self to these subjects, he would have escaped a collision
with his old friend Bentley; but, unfortunately, in
1724 he produced an edition of Terence with a disser-
tation on Comic Metres. All that Hare knew of Comic
Metres he had learned from Bentley ; and he had
assumed, without inquiry, that Bentley 's labours as
Professor of Divinity would prevent him from carrying
GIBBS'S BUILDING 175
out an old intention of editing Terence. But he roused
the wrath of the giant by poaching on his preserves ;
and it was not long before Bentley produced a rival
edition, in which he demolished Hare, and spoiled the
sale of his work. Together with the Terence, however,
Bentley published a very inferior edition of Phaedrus,
an author on whom he knew Hare to be engaged. This
gave his victim a chance ; and in a Latin letter
addressed to Dr. Bland, Headmaster of Eton, Hare
showed his resentment by not only attacking the
Phaedrus, but also by a general indictment of Bentley 's
learning and character. The inconsistency between the
Epistola Critica of 1727 and what Hare had written in
praise of Bentley fourteen years before was too glaring
not to be noticed, and it is no wonder if Sir Isaac
Newton complained that two divines should " be fight-
ing one another about a play-book."
The quarrel did not interfere with Harems promotion.
In the same year he became Bishop of St. Asaph, and
a little later Bishop of Ely. In 1736 Sir Robert
Walpole wished him to succeed Archbishop Wake at
Canterbury ; but he had lately opposed Government
measures for the relief of Dissenters; and, if Cole's
opinion of him is accurate, that, though he was a man
of sharp and piercing wit and sound practical judg-
ment, he was also of a sour and crabbed disposition, it
can hardly be regretted that his promotion stopped short
at Ely. Certainly his behaviour to Bentley was not
worthy of an Archbishop of Canterbury.
It must have been some help to the College that, at
the time when they were most in need of money for
their great building schemes, two Kingsmen were the
176 KING'S COLLEGE
two most powerful Ministers. These were Lord
Townshend and Sir Robert Walpole, of whom the
former matriculated in 1691, the latter in 1696. Their
union was dissolved in 1729 by the resignation of
Townshend, who had been outstripped in political life
by his colleague and brother-in-law, and who was un-
willing to take the lower place. But, in spite of some
imperfection of temper, Townshend was as superior to
Walpole in character as he was inferior in ability. He
was deservedly popular at Cambridge, among other
reasons because it was he who had prompted George I. to
present to the University Bishop Moore's Library ; and it
is remarkable that it was the Nobleman and Fellow-Com-
moner who showed an interest in literature and education,
while the ex-Scholar, apart from his politics and his
pictures, remained a sporting squire of the coarsest type.
Robert Walpole, being only the second son of a Norfolk
baronet, was a Scholar both at Eton and King's. While
an undergraduate he nearly died of smallpox, but
was saved by the skill of a Tory physician, Dr. Brady,
who remarked to a Fellow of the College, " We must
take care to save this young man, or we shall be accused
of having purposely neglected him because he is so
violent a Whig." Brady seems to have recognised
Walpole's abilities, for he said of him 1 : " His singular
escape seems to me a sure indication that he is reserved
for important purposes."
In 1698, on the death of his elder brother, Robert
Walpole became heir to the Hough ton property, resigned
his Scholarship, and went to live at home. From this
time his career becomes part of English history, and it
must be left to our historians to decide whether the
GIBBS'S BUILDING 177
benefits of peace and material prosperity, which his
long supremacy secured to his country, were too dearly
purchased by the organised corruption and habitual
discouragement of any disinterested standard of political
conduct, which must also be associated with his name.
It is difficult to trace any connection between his public
career and education, unless it is to be found in his know-
ledge of Latin, which he used in his conversations with
George I. His mastery of finance could hardly have
been gained at College ; his extraordinary acuteness,
imperturbable temper, and tolerant disposition were
probably no more the result of an Eton and Cambridge
training than were the coarseness and immorality of
his private life. But he was thoroughly loyal to his
old College. When thanked for contributing 500 to
the new building, he said : " I deserve no thanks ; I have
only paid for my board.*" He was always ready to
promote his old friends, unless they were political
opponents; and it must be added that they were
generally willing to be promoted. Indeed, it must
have been a surprise to the Minister, when he sent for
Robert Staples, an old Kingsman for whom he had a
great regard, and asked how he could serve him. Staples,
though by no means an old man, and possessed only of
the small country living of Shottesbrook in Berkshire,
replied that he wanted nothing. This must have been
before 1722, when Staples died, having first written as
his own epitaph :
(t Pastor immeritus
Qui sui gregisque rationem
Redditurus
Hinc decessit."
CHAPTER XIII
WHIGS AND TORIES
FOUR years before the first stone of the new building
was laid, Andrew Snape had been elected Provost, in
spite of Court influence which was exerted in favour of
Dr. Waddington. He was already a well-known man.
He had been chaplain to the Chancellor, the Duke of
Somerset ; he had gone to the jubilee of the University
of Frankfort on the Oder as representative of Cam-
bridge theology, and there had read an address to the
King of Prussia ; and he had also preached before the
Electress Sophia. He had become a Chaplain of Queen
Anne, and was a popular London preacher. In 1711
he was made Headmaster of Eton, which grew and
prospered under him ; and it was said that he added
the name of a town boy, without his parents' consent,
in order to make up the then unparalleled number of
400 boys. But he was soon to become even more
famous.
In 1717, Bishop Hoadley preached his celebrated
sermon on the Kingdom of Christ, in which he denied
that the Church had any power of legislation or dis-
cipline, and also objected to fervency in prayer. The
sermon is at once a manifesto on behalf of the absolute
right of private judgment, and a protest against en-
WHIGS AND TORIES 179
thusiasm. Snape was the first to enter the field against
him with a Letter to the Bishop of Bangor. He ridi-
cules Hoadley's new "Sect of Protestant Quietists,"
and points out that his principles are fatal to all Churches
that have existed from the days of the Apostles down-
wards, to all Creeds and all Articles. There is no want
either of force or dignity in Snape^s letter, which rapidly
went through seventeen editions. The attack was
kept up by Sherlock, Master of Hoadley^s own College,
St. Catharine Hall ; and William Law, himself probably
the most powerful of Hoadley's antagonists, wrote in
support of Snape.
At a later stage in the controversy, when writing
against M. de la Pillioniere, an ex- Jesuit, who was Tutor
to the young Hoadleys, Snape indulged in personalities,
and accused Hoadley of sophistry and equivocation.
But even then both of his opponents spoke of him
with respect ; the Bishop saying that he had not
expected to receive from Dr. Snape anything that was
not humane, gentlemanlike and Christian ; and the
private Tutor acknowledging that Snape was, in
every body "*s judgment, one of the brightest orna-
ments of what he calls the "Laudean" Church.
Other critics were less civil, and made fun of Snape^s
profession :
" First, stern Orbilius in the Lists appears,
Debauch' d in Faction from his Infant years,
To wage eternal war with Spotless Truth
And sow sedition in the tender youth.
The worldly Church in his affections reigns,
As some men court the Heiress for her gains.
180 KING'S COLLEGE
His every period, crabbed and severe,
Smells of the birch and terrifies the ear.
His malice to no Parties is confin'd,
But hates alike all Protestant mankind."
Whatever Snape's hopes of preferment may have been,
his zeal on this occasion cost him his Royal Chaplaincy,
and the most serious result of the controversy was, that
Convocation, when on the point of censuring Hoadley*s
sermon, was silenced and suspended for more than a
century. Snape, in private life, is said to have been
" a man of an amiable, sweet, and affable temper, which,
however, was observed to be somewhat ruffled and
soured towards the latter end of his time," partly
because the majority of the College had become Whig,
and partly from attacks of the gout so frequent and
severe that he had to be carried into Chapel in a sedan-
chair and lifted into his stall. He was also in some
degree a disappointed man, for he attributed to Sir
Robert Walpole^s persistent opposition the fact that he
had not reached higher preferment. In his manage-
ment of the College he was too much in the hands of
one or two Senior Fellows, especially of John Burford.
The Provost made no secret of this, and says in his
will;
" I am so far from being ashamed to have it said of me
that he governed me that I value myself for nothing so
much as having suffered his counsels to have such weight
with me as they had ; of which the Society will reap the
lasting benefit, when the present bickerings shall be
forgot."
The allusion is to the gradual change in the sentiments
WHIGS AND TORIES 181
of the Fellows under the influence of Mr. Nicholas
Harding, a successful barrister and protege of Sir
Robert Walpole, who rose to be Clerk of the House
of Commons and afterwards M.P. for Eye. It was
Harding who was called upon, when Clerk of the House
of Commons, to decide a bet between Walpole and
Pulteney on the accuracy of a Latin quotation made by
the former. The decision was in favour of Pulteney,
who, on receiving his guinea, observed that it was the
first public money which he had handled for a long
time. Burford must have been an ambitious as well as
a masterful man, for he actually cherished hopes of
succeeding the Duke of Somerset as Chancellor of the
University, and the Master of Peterhouse, Dr. Whalley,
was for a time at the head of a party formed to promote
this wild scheme.
While the new building was in progress, the Provost's
attention was distracted by a serious case of discipline.
In January 1723, John Dale had been admitted a
Scholar. He was evidently one of those students who
seem born to vex the souls of Dons. The Headmaster
of Eton had said of him that " there was a person gone
to King's College that would lampoon the Senior
Fellows and make the officers" hearts ake." That Dale
was a man of some promise may be inferred from th e
fact that he was one of the twenty students chosen to
be placed under the care of the newly created Regius
Professor of Modern History, to be trained for a diplo-
matic or political career, and, as the choice of these
students rested with the King or his Ministers, he was
evidently not without interest in official circles.
For some time Dale's delinquencies were of a common-
182 KING'S COLLEGE
place type; he was frequently absent from Chapel,
Hall, and Lectures, and though he generally pretended
sickness or fear of smallpox, yet he was seen on these
occasions out in the town or country. It was therefore
clear that he made light of College rules. But during
his last year, not content with breaking rules, he took
to insulting those who had to administer them. Having,
on some occasion, been ordered to write and read aloud
in Hall an apology to one of the College officers, he
produced instead a document which evidently reflected
on the Provost and Seniors, and it was with great diffi-
culty that he was induced by his friends to make a sub-
mission which saved him from expulsion.
It was some time after this incident that it fell to
his turn to deliver in Hall the yearly declamation on
the anniversary of Gunpowder Plot. This gave him an
opportunity of retaliation which he did not miss. He
had, according to custom, shown his exercise to a
Fellow, who earnestly advised him to leave out several
passages ; but Dale would not even consent to correct
some faults of Latinity, and when he delivered his
speech on November 5, 1725, it was said that the " fury
and rage of his gesture, looks, and tone of voice " were
indescribable. The speech itself is still extant, and is
written in very respectable Latin ; the matter chiefly
consists of a rather childish attack on Roman Catholi-
cism. He asserts that James I. had done his best to
favour Popery, and that there was grave suspicion that
his courtiers had something to do with Prince Henry's
death ; he seems to approve of the rebellion against
Charles I., and to exalt dissenters as champions of
Protestantism in comparison with the Established
WHIGS AND TORIES 183
Church. These were the points which, together with
the speaker's manner, gave most offence to the Society,
especially as it was not obscurely hinted that some of
them were no true friends to the Revolution of 1688.
At the end of the month Dale was summoned before a
full meeting of the College, and his attention was called
to the offensive passages ; whereupon he made a written
reply " more shuffling, evasive, impudent and contemp-
tuous than any words can set forth. 1 ' The Provost
warned him that his impracticable temper might cost
him his Fellowship in the following January, and this
would certainly have been the case if a friend had not
interceded, and also persuaded Dale to sign a recanta-
tion. In this document, after confessing that during
his years of probation he had given "just offence in
severall Instances of an untractable and ungovernable
disposition, 1 " he ended by promising that
" I will be ready after my admission to my Fellowship to
make such satisfaction for the just offence I have given to
the Society (which I do freely acknowledge I did design to
give) by my late speech as shall be required by the Provost
and proper officers."
On the faith of this promise he was admitted a
Fellow; but when an apology was drawn up for him
to read he refused, defending the various passages to
which objection had been taken. The Provost gave
him seventeen days in which to think better of it and
consult his friends. But he persisted in his refusal, and
was then put out of commons and confined to his
chamber. This action was taken under the llth
Statute, which requires obedience to the Provost, and
184 KING'S COLLEGE
enacts that, if the offender remains obstinate after
fifteen days, he shall be expelled. During the fifteen
days he must remain a prisoner in his own rooms and
provide himself with meals at his own expense. The
next day, after sentence had been pronounced, Dale
applied for leave to go to Buckden and lay his case
before the Visitor. The Provost told him to wait till
his application had been considered, but Dale started
off at once. This rendered him liable to deprivation
under the 58th Statute, which requires members of the
Society to submit to all punishments duly imposed,
without resorting to appeals or any other methods of
postponing punishments, on pain of deprivation ; and
he was accordingly deprived of his Fellowship.
It was not likely that Dale would accept this as
the conclusion of the matter. He had recourse to
the law, and for a time found a refuge in the office
of Lord Townshend, then Secretary of State, where
he received warm support in his action against the
College.
The preliminary proceedings were held at West-
minster Hall, where it was settled that the Visitor
might receive an appeal from a single Fellow. On the
other hand, the College gained a victory in the decision
that the Visitor must hear all appeals within the College
precincts. Early in March 1726 the Visitor, Bishop
Reynolds, came to Cambridge, and the case was argued
in the College Hall by lawyers retained on each side.
The first day was taken up with the question whether
Dale had appealed against his expulsion or against the
suspension of commons, and when it was decided that
the appeal was against the original punishment, his
WHIGS AND TORIES 185
counsel proceeded to argue that expulsion after this
appeal was an attack on the Visitor's jurisdiction.
The sittings continued on the following day from
9 A.M. to 8 P.M., one of Dale's counsel arguing that
faults committed during his undergraduateship were
condoned by admission to the Fellowship, "osculo
pacis " ; another, Nicholas Harding, quoting a passage
from a sermon preached at St. Mary's by the Provost,
which was distorted into a condemnation of the Revolu-
tion of 1688. This may have been done either to
justify Dale's innuendoes against the loyalty of his
College or to bias the Visitor. But counsel chiefly
insisted on the argument, that punishment should have
been inflicted for " detraction " under the 33rd Statute,
which allows suspension of commons for fifteen days,
but does not, as in the case of the llth Statute, result
in deprivation of Fellowship, if the offender continues
obstinate. The College counsel of course argued that
other Statutes were equally applicable to the case, and
that, where the particular offence was not specified in
the Statutes, the Provost had a general power. At the
close of the day's proceedings the Visitor asked for the
appellant's bill of costs, a clear indication that he
meant to decide in his favour ; and accordingly, on the
third morning, he gave judgment that Dale's crime, if
any, was " detraction," and should have been punished
with fifteen days' suspension of commons. The usual
wrangle followed about costs, and eventually the sum of
*160 was allowed to Dale, whose whole costs amounted
to the prodigious amount of 600. The Visitor ended
by ordering that, if any person who is punished says
that he appeals, the officers shall proceed no further till
186 KING'S COLLEGE
the case is heard and determined by the Visitor. An
account, which professes to come from Batty, the young
Fellow appointed to be Dale's companion during the
confinement of the latter to his rooms, represents the
College case as breaking down, because the Visitor
would pay no attention to any promise which Dale had
made before admission to his Fellowship, and because
the Provost was unable to point to any particular
Statute under which Dale was ejected. The llth
Statute seems to be sufficient for the purpose, but
perhaps the College counsel mismanaged their case.
Dale's speech of November 5, taken by itself, hardly
seems deserving of all the censure which it received ;
but we are not able to judge of the offensiveness of the
manner which accompanied its delivery, nor was it the
first time that he had gone out of his way to insult his
Seniors. The College authorities certainly acted weakly
in admitting him to his Fellowship before he had
apologised ; and there is some reason to believe that
their leniency was due to a fear of losing the contribu-
tions of the great Whig families to the new building.
The bad faith which Dale showed in breaking the con-
ditions on which he had gained his Fellowship was
quite inexcusable ; and it is not uncharitable, from all
that we know of Bishop Reynolds, to suspect that his
decision may have been partly due to other than purely
judicial considerations.
The sequel of Dale's story is told in a few words by
Antony Allen, viz., that "he lived some years much
disturbed in his understanding, and soon died." Batty's
account confirms this. According to him, immediately
after the Visitor's decision the Provost sent for Dale.
WHIGS AND TORIES 187
Dale went to the Lodge, expecting a scene and prepared
to resent any recriminations. But to his surprise the
Provost received him in the most friendly manner,
offered him his hand, aud proposed a thorough recon-
ciliation. This was too much for Dale in his excited
state, and shortly afterwards Batty found him " in a
great perturbation of mind, which at last hurried him
into the last degree of insanity."
A new trouble presently arose in the College. William
Willymott was in 1729 over fifty years of age and Vice-
Provost. He had tried more than one profession and
was a Doctor of Civil Law ; but, being " a man of a
volatile and unsteady complexion," he grew dissatisfied
with Doctors' Commons and returned into College,
with a view to ordination and a Living. Having been
originally a Tory, he now joined the Whig party. His
first difficulty was to procure from the College a " Com-
mendamus " to enter Holy Orders ; he appealed to the
Visitor to know if there was anything to prevent a
Doctor of Laws from being ordained or from holding a
College benefice, and he obtained a favourable decision.
This did not prevent the College from passing him over
more than once when Livings were vacant, and on
November 4, 1731, they presented a Fellow who was
junior to Willymott to the Rectory of Walkern. The
choice lay in the first instance with the whole body of
Fellows, a majority of whom voted for Willymott, but
they were not unanimous, and the duty of presentation
then devolved on the Seniors, a bare majority of whom
preferred a Mr. Sturgis.
But it was still necessary to affix the College Seal to
the Deed of Presentation ; and one of the keys was in
188 KING'S COLLEGE
the keeping of Willymott as Vice-Provost. At 7 P.M.
on the same day the Notary Public came to him to say
that his key was wanted. He replied that it was lost,
and the box must be broken open. This was apparently
done; at any rate the Presentation was sealed. As
Willymott had already given notice of an appeal, he
was perhaps justified in refusing to take part in the
sealings, though not in the manner of his refusal. On
the other hand, the College were in a great difficulty ;
for if they had not dared to cut the knot, the Living
would soon have lapsed to Bishop Reynolds, who would
doubtless have appointed Willymott.
This was no secret, for the question had, even before
November 4, been brought to the Visitor's notice by
an appeal from eighteen Fellows, chiefly B.A.s, who
claimed that a majority of the whole body of Fellows
was sufficient for an appointment. Such a view was
contrary to the decision of previous Visitors; but it
met with sympathy from Bishop Reynolds, who
intimated that he was prepared to reverse, or at any
rate to reconsider, these decisions ; and he went so far
as to recommend the appointment of Willymott. This
he probably did, either from a belief that Willymott,
as Senior, had a right to the Living, or to save himself
future trouble; for he may well have hoped that the
Seniors would prefer to compromise the matter, and by
the appointment of Willymott to escape all question as
to their statutable right to present. But in taking
this line he somewhat departed from the position of a
judge for that of a partisan. And after the meeting of
November 4 he did this more openly ; for, writing to
Willymott from Buckden on November 5, he says that
WHIGS AND TORIES 189
Mr. Sturgis had come the night before with his Presenta-
tion, desiring to be instituted (for Walkern was then in
the diocese of Lincoln), but that he had not only refused
institution, but had given the
" strongest Lecture upon the conduct of the Persons con-
cerned that I ever read in all my time. By which I meant
to express my disapprobation of the proceedings in this
Business, and to give you full time to advise with your
Councell about the operation of any Appeal."
Accordingly, when Willy mott on November 15, 1731,
sent in his appeal, he had good reason to expect to
meet with a favourable award. His claim chiefly rested
on what he calls the invariable custom of the College to
present the Senior in standing, but he also raises the
pbjection that Batty, one of those who made up the
adverse majority, had forfeited his Fellowship by
holding a London Living. The blow to his own
character is what he professes to feel most ; for
" if a man be not fitt in Moralls and Learning for a Living,
he is fitt for nothing, and the same reasons that disqualify e
him for a Cure do or ought to expell him from the
College."
The controversy was embittered by the interference
of Nicholas Harding, who on November 11 wrote to
the Visitor a long letter in support of the petition of
the Junior Fellows. This document had contained a
sentence against misapplication of College moneys in
payment of the costs of the Dale case, and had naturally
elicited a protest from the Provost and Seniors, to the
effect that this use of College funds had been voted by
190 KING'S COLLEGE
the College and approved by the Visitor eight years ago.
Harding now alleged that other charges might have
been brought ; the Provost might have been accused of
discouraging those principles of liberty on which the
House of Hanover was established, or of continuing an
unjust and unequal method of dividing the surplus
revenues ; or again of permitting the College Tutors to
exact six pounds a year from each Scholar and yet
neglect their duty of reading lecturers ; in a word, of
" Partiality, Intolerable Negligence, and Dilapidation."
And he concludes with the remark, "The Provost, I
suppose, flatters himself that the rusty sword which he
has threatn'd to draw upon us will frighten us out of
our wits." Harding must have hoped to represent
Snape as an imitator of Bentley, while' he himself
proposed to play the part of a second Serjeant Miller.
No doubt he also wished to prejudice the mind of the
Visitor against the Seniors; and it is to the credit of
the Bishop that he seems to have paid no attention to
Harding, of whom perhaps he had already had enough
in the Dale case.
The Provost and Seniors, in reply to Willymott,
assured the Visitor that they had acted according to
Statute in presenting Sturgis; and that, though they
could quote no case in which a Senior had been rejected
for a Living, there were cases in which the Senior in
standing had abstained from applying, because he knew
he would be rejected. Moreover, there was nothing in
the Statutes to secure to Fellows the right to Livings
in regular rotation; and this doctrine, viz., that the
College had a free choice in the matter, was confirmed
by more than one Visitor in the next century. It was
WHIGS AND TORIES 191
settled that two counsel should be heard on each side ;
but the Provost and Seniors insisted on the hearing
being held in College, and this was very unpalatable to
the Visitor. He could not resist the claim, but he
ordered that the cost of the appeal, or of any hospitality
shown to himself, should not be shared by the Junior
Fellows :
" l t for my part/' he writes, " declare that I will not eat
bread any more in College on any Appeal, if I am not first
assured, that the bread which is offered me shall not be
paid for by any of the College other than such as are
particularly concerned in the matter of the Appeal on
which I come."
This was rather an unreasonable demand, as was also
the proposal that the Vice-Provost should be the
Bishop's host ; for the Provost and Seniors, whether
right or wrong, were acting on behalf of the Society
as a whole ; and the Provost replied with dignity:
" As my House is the only place within the College at
present, where you can be lodged with Convenience, I beg
your Lordship will be so good as to accept of the same
Accommodation as before."
It ended, however, in the Visitor's sending two Com-
missaries to act on his behalf. This was on January 5,
1732 ; and their decision (of which there is no record)
must have been against Willymott, for in the course of
the year Sturgis became Rector of Walkern. Willy-
mott, however, managed to raise some question in the
Court of King's Bench, and proceedings which had
reference either to the Visitor's right to send Commis-
192 KING'S COLLEGE
saries or to some other point in the case were going on
as late as November 18.
The next year, 1733, provided Willymott with a
fresh grievance. He had, apparently, failed to prove
that Batty's Fellowship was vacant ; but Burford had
lately succeeded to an estate in Hertfordshire ; and
Willymott, in the Provosts absence, could hardly be
kept from despatching a messenger to Eton to announce
the vacancy and require a Scholar to be sent from Eton
to King's. Burford asserted that the debts and other
claims on this estate were so heavy that he was out of
pocket, and he undertook to resign his Fellowship as
soon as he received from the estate the amount specified
by the Statutes. The Provost, writing to Willymott
from Windsor, where he was in residence as Canon, tells
him that if he had not wilfully absented himself from
a Congregation, to which he had been summoned, he
would have heard Burford's explanation. And then he
gives the Vice-Provost a bit of his mind :
" I am persuaded you are still ignorant, wilfully ignorant of
the true merrits of the Cause. To fly from the Hearing
and postpone the affair till you cou'd be Judge, Prosecutor,
and Evidence, all in one, is an attempt which I believe no
man living but yourself would have ventur'd on ; you have
long been used to do rash and unaccountable things, by
following your own Head- Strong Humour, and you have
hitherto done them with Impunity. You have fals'ly
charged myself and others with violation of the Statutes,
when you have been a most notorious Violater of them
yourself, and I hope the time is not farr off when it will be
made to appear to what Degree you have done it."
After this letter, it cannot surprise us to find that at
WHIGS AND TORIES 193
the annual election in November 1733 a Mr. Parr was
elected Vice-Provost instead of Willymott.
But this only added fuel to the fire. Willymott
appealed once more, partly on the ground that Burford
had no right to vote, partly because Parr was not one
of the thirteen Senior Fellows. There are signs in the
Visitor's letters that by this time he had become a little
tired of Willymott. But he was irritated once more by
a refusal on the part of the College authorities to come
to Buckden and justify themselves ; and, though he
advised Willymott to wait for another annual election,
he proceeded in June to pronounce the election of the
preceding autumn null and void and to order a fresh
one. The College met this move by obtaining a Rule
from the Court of King's Bench, the result of which
was to checkmate the Visitor; and his last letter to
Willymott on this subject sums up the situation :
"Buckden, Sept. 11, 1734.
" D WILLYMOTT,
" I have been, ever since y e last election of College
officers, fully of opinion, that it was most advisable for you
to expect y e re-establishment of the Vice-Provostship at
y e next election, which will be in y e beginning of Nov.
next. Nevertheless, at your earnest request, I did receive
y e Appeal, and Appoint an hearing at my house, which by
Universal Consent and Practice is allowed to be y e place
for hearing Appeals, and is, as I am fully persuaded, the
only proper place. But, on y r neglect to Defend that
Appointment for hearing y e Appeal, a Prohibition hath
issued from the Court of King's Bench : so that I cannot,
as I apprehend, hear the matter of that Appeal, in any
shape, without y e hazard of a Premunire, as y e matter now
N
194 KING^S COLLEGE
stands. But if you shall think fit, to bring, as you propose,
a mandamus to have y e Appeal heard, That writ will not
only warrant but command me to proceed without danger,
and I shall be very far from taking any offence at being
provided with so good Armour. As the case, at present,
is, It would be not courage, but Foolhardiness to go on.
In the mean time you will do me but justice to believe,
that I have been, to the Utmost of my power,
" Y r Faithful Friend,
" R. LINCOLN."
No one who reads the Bishop^s correspondence can i'ail
to do this amount of justice to him.
Willymott was actually elected Vice-Provost in
November 1734. Evidently the College had only
wished to inflict a temporary punishment and were not
actuated by any rancorous feelings towards him. They
were willing enough to let him keep the official position,
which they thought due to his seniority. What they
were not willing to allow was that, when he had escaped
those College and University duties which other Fellows
in Holy Orders had performed for years, he should step
over the heads of these men into the first vacant Living.
However, his turn came at last ; and in 1736 he was
presented to the Sinecure Rectory of Milton. When
this fell vacant, he was still only in Deacon's orders, and
there are some curious letters from Bishop Reynolds,
expressing a willingness to give him private ordination
on the shortest possible notice, and, of course, without
any examination ; but adding that
" as a Deacon or even a Meer Layman is capable of a
Presentation to a Cure of Souls, or a Dignity in the Church,
WHIGS AND TORIES 195
and such Presentation would be a proper Title for his
ordination ; so certainly a Deacon is capable of a Presenta-
tion to a Sinecure."
Cole, who knew Willymott personally, says that he
would afterwards have been glad to give up his Preferment
and resume his Fellowship ; and that at last, " after a
very turbulent and very uneasy life to himself and
others with whom he was concerned, he died at an Inn
in Bedford when on a journey." He was very intimate
with the Cole family, who lived at Babraham, and at
one time would have boarded with them,
" had not his known Temper deterred any one, who valued
their own Quiet, from accepting him on those Terms ;
however he would come and stay, now and then, when his
facetious and entertaining Company was always acceptable."
One more domestic quarrel is recorded, in which
Provost Snape was a party. He had ordered a certain
brewer to bring in a load of beer and lay it in the
College cellar. This was being done on March 4,
1737 ; but Mr. Bland, the Bursar, " seeing it, took hold
of the horses 1 heads, and made the Carrmen drive the
Dray out of College." The Provost ordered it to be
readmitted, but Mr. Bland " repeated his opposition,
and declared that he would do the same thing as often
as it should be attempted, and withall told the Butler
that, if it should be taken in and used, it should never
be paid for." The controversy was decided by the
Visitor in the Provost's favour, so that he gained his
last battle. But the subject of the struggle seems
hardly worthy of a man who had won his spurs as a
champion of the Church.
CHAPTER XIV
SOME DETAILS OF COLLEGE LIFE
ON Dr. Snape's death in January 1743 a severe contest
for the Provostship took place. William George, the
Eton Headmaster, was supported by the moderate
Whigs and by Sir Robert Walpole ; but, besides the
Tory candidate, Chapman, there was another Whig,
Thomas Thackeray, great-grandfather of the novelist, in
the field. Early on Monday, January 17, the Fellows
assembled in Chapel ; but it was P.M. on Tuesday
before the election could be completed, and the Fellows
in their surplices were obliged to pass the night within
the building. Fires of charcoal set in braziers helped
to mitigate the cold ; but the blankets and brandy, with
which some at least of the Electors had provided them-
selves, must have been in great request. Eventually,
the sixteen supporters of Thackeray went over to the
side of George, and he was elected Provost.
Like his predecessor, he had been Headmaster of
Eton ; but it is said that his abilities were not equal to
the position, and that, when he got into difficulties, his
temper became sour and his manners brutal. Charles
Pratt, then a Fellow of King's, in letters to Sneyd
Davies says :
" 1 take it for granted that you have had some relation
SOME DETAILS OF COLLEGE LIFE 197
of our election, and know that we sat thirty-one hours in
the Chapel before we could agree. But perhaps you have
not been told another thing, which I assure you is true,
that, if you had been qualified, we had certainly made you
Provost. . . . The new Provost is the delight of society,
and behaves to every one's satisfaction, released from all
care, free and jovial. This is very different from his
carriage and conduct at Eton. You may see how that
perverse disposition, which I call absurdity or blundering
ignorance of decorum, will make the same individual odious
or entertaining, as the temper in which it acts is in or out
of tune. At present, as he has no care, his good nature
has returned ; so that now his absurdity, which is rather
heightened than diminished, gives an agreeable turn to
everything he says or does. These men are very unfit for
business, which calls for steady abilities and steady resolu-
tion ; but make very excellent companions in private life,
especially when they are tinctured with letters, and have
like him quick fancies, with a good ear and a powerful
memory."
In the critical year 1745 the College had an oppor-
tunity of showing its loyalty ; and on November 29 the
sum of d^&OO was voted "for his majesty ""s service in this
time of common danger." This act of patriotism was
the more praiseworthy from the fact that for three
years (1744-46) there was no surplus out of which to
vote a dividend. Prudence, however, dictated a second
vote, on December 20, that the money should be paid
by instalments to the Vice-Chancellor, and in proportion
to payments by other subscribers. The purse of the
College about this time was freely opened for benevo-
lent or religious purposes. There are votes of money
for the S.P.G. and the S.P.C.K., for Exeter Hospital,
198 KING'S COLLEGE
and for the sufferers from a recent fire at Crediton.
Something too was done for the establishment of parish
schools. At the same time the College set apart money
arising from the sale of timber to pay off the building
debt, and also created another fund for defending law-
suits and increasing the College estates.
Efforts were being made about this time for the
improvement of University discipline. The new Chan-
cellor, the Duke of Newcastle, drew up regulations
which were approved by the Senate. Besides enforcing
the wearing of academical dress, they aimed at diminish-
ing the use of coffee-houses and taverns, and the habit
of riding and driving ; while such games as tennis and
cricket were forbidden between 9 and 12 A.M.
The practice of resorting to coffee-houses was at least
as old as 1675. In the eighteenth century it had
become the custom of students after morning chapel to
repair to some coffee-house, where
" hours are spent in talking, and less profitable reading of
newspapers, of which swarms are continually supplied from
London. The scholars are so greedy after news, which
is none of their business, that they neglect all for it ; and
it is become very rare for any of them to go directly to his
chambers after prayers, without doing his suit at the coffee-
house ; which is a vast loss of time grown out of a pure
novelty, for who can apply close to a subject with his head
full of the din of a coffee-house ? "
Roger North, who writes thus, suggests that, since
coffee had now become a morning refreshment, it might
be provided in College. One or two exceptional men,
such as Horace Walpole at King^s and his friend
Thomas Gray at Peterhouse, drank nothing but tea ;
SOME DETAILS OF COLLEGE LIFE 199
and no doubt there were still some old-fashioned people
who were content to breakfast at the Buttery-hatch off
bread and beer.
Sometimes a mere waste of time was not the only
danger to be found in a coffee-house. Bishop Fleet-
wood's only son, Charles, who became a Scholar of
King's in 1711, was, so Cole tells us,
" very near being married to one Mary Paris, who then
did, as she now does, keep a Coffee House near the College :
which was prevented by the Interposition of Dr. Green,
Master of Benet College and then Vice-Chancellor, who
by a Stretch of his Prerogative sent her to the House of
Correction and gave timely Notice of the Affair to the
Bishop, who put a stop to this inconsiderate Match."
But, though rescued on this occasion by the arbitrary
action of the Vice-Chancellor, Charles Fleetwood lived
to give his father trouble of another kind. He was
already Rector of Barley when the Living of Cottenham
fell vacant, and he desired to hold both, as the income
of Cottenham would help him to live in comfort at
Barley. But it was contrary to the Bishop's rule that
any Incumbent should hold two Livings, if one provided
a sufficient maintenance ; and the son never forgave the
father for refusing to appoint him. The Bishop used
to say that he would not wish his enemy a greater
curse than "an only favourite and disrespectful son."
Evidently Charles Fleetwood brought no credit to an
honoured name.
Smoking is not mentioned in the regulations of 1750,
and apparently throughout this century it was only
practised by Dons in their Combination Rooms. The
habits of Kingsmen were probably not very different
200 KING'S COLLEGE
from those of other undergraduates, and the College
records of this date furnish instances of Scholars being
punished for keeping horses, or for being " engaged in a
horse-race at Newmarket." Sometimes they did even
worse things; the most serious offence being that of
" keeping up " under pretence of illness and then going
out of College for the day or even for the night also.
There are not many signs of excessive conviviality ; but
on December 17, 1771, two Scholars were punished for
" being in Trinity Hall at a most unseasonable hour in
the morning of the 16th instant and making a great
disturbance there." A Scholar named Cooke, in 1767,
who was perhaps ambitious of imitating John Dale,
brought to his Tutor a Latin exercise, which contained
an uncomplimentary description of the Tutor himself:
" Decipimur specie recti ; sed decipitur quis
Hac recti specie ? Cui Dii tribuere jocantes
Exiguum forte imperium parvamque tyrannira :
Scilicet hie, regni impatiens sceptroque superbus,
Ut falsis olim laetata Monedula pennis,
Evehit in ccelum caput, alta voce probrosos
Insequitur mores puerorum, abrupta juventae
Inclamat studia ; en ! vacuae aedes ! "
These and other lines of a still more stinging character
entailed on Cooke a week^s imprisonment in his rooms
and hard labour in the shape of extra exercises.
Another Scholar, Jones, in the same year fared still
worse. He had leave out of College on August 11 for
the usual sixty days. On October 7 he wrote to an
undergraduate friend to say that he had been bitten by
a dog suspected of madness, and had gone to Gravesend
for the benefit of sea-bathing. He desired his friend to
SOME DETAILS OF COLLEGE LIFE 201
get him extension of leave. This was granted on condi-
tion that Jones produced a proper certificate from the
person under whose care he was. No certificate was
sent ; and when Jones at last returned, though he had
a long story to tell about his accident and how he had
been attended by a Mr. Figg, of Ludgate Hill, a
specialist in such cases, and even produced what
purported to be a certificate from Mr. Figg, further
inquiry satisfied the authorities that the whole story
was a fabrication, and he was deprived of his Scholar-
ship.
Before this incident occurred the Provostship had
passed into the hands of John Sumner, who held it
from 1756 to 1772. He, like his two predecessors, had
been Headmaster of Eton ; he was also a Canon of
Windsor and held other Church preferment.
In the latter part of the eighteenth century the College
grounds began to assume the appearance with which we
are familiar. Avenues or rows of ash-trees, elm or
walnut, had been planted in 1580. One reached from
the Friars' Gate, the southern entrance to the College,
where a Gothic Arch under a tiled penthouse gave
admission from Queens' Lane, as far as the west door
of the Chapel. A second, at right angles to this, ran
across the centre of what is now the Back Lawn to the
river, where a stone bridge (replacing an earlier one of
wood) was built in 1627. In the north-west corner of
this Court were a bowling-green and an inner garden
protected by a wall ; and within the garden a gallery
overhanging the river. On the far side of the Cam the
central avenue was continued on a raised causeway till
it reached the west ditch at " Field Gate," which was
provided with a wooden bridge. To the south of this
202 KLNG'S COLLEGE
causeway was a " Grove " or larger garden with a hop-
yard, pigeon-house and ponds. This area at one time
went by the name of Laundress Yard, and was reserved
for the use of the Senior Fellows. To the north lay a
meadow, in which the College horses were turned out.
Close to the bridge over the Cam, but on the east bank,
there was another small garden for the Junior Fellows.
One more avenue ran along the north side of the Court,
nearly parallel to the new buildings of Clare Hall. In
the Front Court also the south and east sides were
planted with trees, and the walk which divided the Back
Court was continued across the Front Court till it
reached the " Clerks' Lodgings,*" just north of the spot
where the Porters 1 Lodge now stands. The erection of
Gibbs's Building had, of course, destroyed one of these
avenues ; but there seems to have been no other change
till the middle of the century, when a walk was made
and planted on the west bank of the river, and another
along the south side of the Back Court ; and the Front
Court was also laid down as a lawn.
Next followed a similar treatment of the Back Court,
in accordance with a vote of College of April 14, 1772:
" Agreed to proceed in the further improvement of the
Chappel yard on the West side of the New Building, by
laying down the same with Grass seeds and afterwards
feeding it from time to time with sheep as ofccasion may
require in order to get it into good and ornamental condi-
tion ; to compleat the Gravelling the Walks round the
same as now laid out, and not for the future to put any
horses there."
From this period then we may date the existence of
the Lawn as we have it, especially as it seems that about
the same time the walls which enclosed the bowling-
SOME DETAILS OF COLLEGE LIFE 203
green and inner garden, and a wall which ran along the
edge of the river, were removed.
The years 1770 to 1776 were also a period of altera-
tion within the Chapel. The black and white marble
squares had been laid down in the Choir in 1702, but
the Ante-chapel remained only partially paved. A
seasonable gift of 4<QO from Lord Godolphin enabled
the College to complete this work in 1774. At this
time, too, the Lectern was banished to the Library in
the side Chapel, where it remained till 1854. The
legacy of John Hungerford provided funds for a new
altar and oak panelling round the east bay of the
Chapel, and also for two stone niches on each side of
the east window ; and a picture ascribed to Daniele da
Volterra, the gift of Lord Carlisle, added a little colour
to the whole of this work, which was designed by Essex
and cost 1650. The style was such as might be
expected of the period, and at any rate satisfied Horace
Walpole, who writes to Cole on May 22, 1777 :
" I dote on Cambridge, and could like to be often there.
The beauty of King's College Chapel, now it is restored,
penetrated me with a visionary longing to be a monk in it."
A later generation, however, has not scrupled to
condemn and undo Essex's work.
It was ten years after this, in 1786, that an alteration
was made in the Provost's Lodge. The University were
contemplating a new building parallel to the Senate
House, and the College accepted the sum of 6^1150,
giving up the north end of the Lodge, " in order to
promote the public design of the University."" The
sum received from the University, but no more than
this amount, was to be laid out in making such addi-
204 KING'S COLLEGE
/
tions to the Lodge as would compensate the Provost for
the loss which he sustained. This consisted of six
rooms on the ground floor, four bedrooms and the
Audit Room, and two staircases. To make up for this
loss the " Brick Building," which stood at the south
end of the Lodge, was now made part of it. This
building dated from 1692 ; the ground floor served as a
school, and the upper storeys had provided rooms for
Fellow-Commoners till they found a home in Gibbs's
Building. There must always have been some school-
room for the Choristers, and one such had certainly
stood on this site before 1692 ; but the school seems
gradually to have grown in importance. Some Fellow
of the College usually acted as Master ; and other Cam-
bridge boys, besides the King's Choristers, received their
education here. One of these was James Essex, the
architect. It may have been convenient that the school
should be near the " Clerks' Lodging " or " Conducts'
Court " ; but there seems something incongruous in the
close proximity of Fellow-Commoners to Choristers,
though it was an advantage that the former should be
within easy access of the Provost's Lodge.
The building contemplated by the University was
soon given up, and in 1797-98 a new passage was
made from Trumpington Street to the north-east corner
of the Chapel, dividing the two properties ; the Uni-
versity binding themselves not to build on it nor to
open it for horse or carriage traffic.
The change in the Lodge took place while William
Cooke was Provost. He, too, had been Headmaster of
Eton, but only for three years, when ill-health obliged
him to resign and retire to the Vicarage of Sturminster
Marshall. It was said that the boys, at any rate, did
SOME DETAILS OF COLLEGE LIFE 205
not regret him. Cole's account of him is far from
flattering : " Made Master of the Schole, for which not
being found equal, he was made Fellow of the College
to let him down gently ; and to get rid of his Imperti-
nence, Insolence, and other unamiable Qualities, he was
strongly recommended to be Provost of King's, on
Dr. Simmer's death. It is not the first time that a
man's unsocial and bad disposition has been the occasion
of his advancement. I know the College would be
delighted to kick him up higher, so that they might
get rid of a formal important Pedant, who will be
a Schoolmaster in whatever station of life his fortune
may advance him to." This is not complimentary, but
it is mild, compared with the language used by the
same writer about Cooke, when smarting under what
he considered a grievance.
According to Cole's story, Cooke, soon after his
election in 1772, was instrumental in raising the rent of
a cottage at Milton in which Cole lived, and on which
he had spent 600. The injured tenant can find no
words bad enough for this " scoundrel " of a Provost,
and for " Paddon, a dirty wretch of a Bursar, very
suitable to him."
It is likely enough that Cooke was a bit of a pedant,
and he may have thought it his duty to treat the
College tenants with justice rather than generosity.
But the only College vote which deals with the Milton
case (November 20, 1776), " To seal a lease of Milton
Farm to the Rev. Mr. Cole for twenty years from
April 5 last under the same rent as the former," does
not bear out Cole's complaints, and it was passed
unanimously at a meeting of the Provost and thirteen
Fellows. Perhaps the rent, though nominally due
206 KING'S COLLEGE
before, had not been exacted till a lease was granted, in
consideration of the tenant's outlay on the premises.
It is to the credit of the Provost that he seems to
have lived in harmony with his Fellows, and that he
raised no difficulties to the alteration of his Lodge,
which must have caused him at least temporary dis-
comfort. And it must be added that during his tenure
of office there was a marked improvement in the
discipline of the undergraduates. One bad case, indeed,
is recorded a few months after his appointment. A
Scholar, named Stanhope, who had obtained leave of
absence for the purpose of paying a visit to his mother,
never went near her, but took the opportunity to
"drive through the town of Eton in an open carriage,
having with him a person of suspicious Fame and Character,
and there taking up into his Carriage one of the Scholars
of Eton and Carrying him away from School without leave
obtained of the Master, and otherwise behaving in a very
unbecoming manner to the 111 Example of the Scholars
there."
Stanhope was severely punished, and there is no other
record of misconduct for more than twenty years. It is
reasonable to infer that, if Provost Cooke had the
manners of a Schoolmaster, he also possessed the
Schoolmaster^ art of keeping order. In one respect he
was unlike all other Provosts, for he had received his
earliest schooling at Harrow ; but he makes no mention
of this in the epitaph which he himself composed, and
in which he attributed all his successes in life to his
training in the two Foundations of King Henry.
It is interesting to notice the readiness with which
the College of those days contributed towards national
SOME DETAILS OF COLLEGE LIFE 207
objects. In 1776 twenty guineas were given to relieve
the distress caused to the clergy in North America by
the revolt of the Colonies ; and when the French Revo-
lution drove some of the Priests into exile, fifty guineas
were voted, in 1792, to " the French clergy now in this
Kingdom. 11 The war which broke out in 1793 induced
the College to open its purse again, and grant %l to
" provide Cloathing for the Troops on the Continent,"
and W5 towards the augmentation of the Militia ;
and on November 10, 1797, 10 10s. was voted
" for the relief of the Widows and Orphans of the Seamen
who fell in the late Action between Admiral Duncan's
Squadron and the Dutch Fleet."
An extensive purchase of Livings was made in 1781,
when the College acquired, for the sum of ^2000, the
Advowsons of Kingston, Richmond, Kew, Petersham,
East Molesey and Thames Ditton. A legacy from a
Mr. Bullock provided more than half the purchase-
money, and the rest was borrowed from their own
Timber and Chest Funds.
The last year of Dr. Cookers life was marked by an
unfortunate loss. The Provost, on returning to College
towards the end of October 1796, found that the whole
of his Plate, which had been deposited in the Treasury
of the old Court, had been abstracted, although the
doors were still locked and there was no sign of violence
having been used. No time was lost in taking a review
of the College Plate and in making over to the Provost
what could be spared. Much of the old Plate was also
now sold, and new and more necessary articles either
purchased or given by former members of the College.
CHAPTER XV
SOME EMINENT KINGSMEN
WHEN the College preferred George to Thackeray as
their Provost they lost a man of some real distinction.
It was said that, when Thomas Thackeray preached at
St. Mary's the church was crowded both to see and to
hear him, for he and his wife, a Miss Woodward, were
reputed to be the handsomest pair ever seen ; and the
portrait of Thackeray in King's Lodge shows that this
report was not altogether without foundation. Accord-
ing to Cole, he was of a most humane and candid dis-
position, and generally beloved. His defence of Whig
or Latitudinarian principles cost him his Eton Master-
ship ; but a vacancy in the Headmastership of Harrow,
in 1746, gave him a new opportunity. A former Fellow
of King's, Thomas Bryan, had held the post for forty
years, and had done much to raise the School. But
since 1731 a disastrous period had followed, and it was
Thackeray who now restored the School to the position
to which Bryan had brought it, and paved the way for
a period of still greater prosperity. At 53 years of age
he was rather old to undertake such a task ; but, with a
family of more than a dozen children, it was necessary
for him to exert himself to the utmost. When he
resigned, it was expected that he would be made a
Bishop, for he had for the last seven years been Arch-
SOME EMINENT KINGSMEN 209
deacon of Surrey. Hoadley, then Bishop of Winchester,
had given him this office, telling him that he could per-
form its duties in the Easter holidays of each year. No
further preferment, however, followed, for Thackeray
died suddenly in London, in September 1760.
A few years after this an unusual scene took place in
the College Chapel. On May 4, 1763, nine colours
taken at Manila by Sir William Draper, a former Fellow
of the College, were carried in procession by the
Scholars, accompanied by the Fellows, the organ play-
ing, and the Choir preceding and singing hymns. The
offer of these Flags was first made in a letter from
Draper to one of the Fellows :
PALL MALL, April 18.
" DEAR BURFORD
" Many thanks to you for your obliging Epistle. I
have got some Spanish Colours taken at Manila for the
Chapel. And His Majesty has been pleased to consent
that they shall be sent to your College and hung up there.
So if you have no objection to see your old Friend's
Trophies over your head, I will send them down. Love to
Glyn.
"I am
"y r aff. Friend
"Upon recollection I believe "WiLL. DRAPER."
I ought to address the College
in Form : if so let me know it."
The Provost, however, who was now John Sumner,
did not wait for a more formal address, but wrote on
April 20 :
" DEAR SIR
" Your L r to M r Burford, acquainting him with y r
Intention of sending the Spanish Colours taken at Manila
210 KING'S COLLEGE
for y r Chapel He this morning communicated to Me ; and
I immediately desired a Meeting of all the Members resi-
dent in College, that they might receive the same satisfac-
tion with myself, in having your Design imparted to them ;
and be informed of His Majesty's goodness in granting His
royal permission for that Purpose. We were rejoicing
indeed in the general Joy of the Nation, upon so glorious
a Conquest being atchieved ; and were flattering ourselves
with something like a secret Pride, that so important an
acquisition had been made by one of our own Body ; when
it appeared that you too in the midst of your Triumph
were as Mindful of Us : and while we were indulging our-
selves in the pleasing Thoughts of bearing a relation to the
Commander, and having some Share in the honour of his
success ; you have realized, Sir, our imaginary Glory, and
made us actually the Depositaries of your Trophies."
There is a good deal more, for the length, as well as the
style, of the Doctor of Divinity contrasts with that of
the practical soldier.
The Colours were placed on each side of the altar
rails ; and Latin orations were delivered by two Fellows,
one of whom, Mr. Burford, was Public Orator. These
were followed by Evening Service and a Thanksgiving
anthem. It has to be confessed, with shame, that the
Colours, which afterwards found a home in the organ
loft, have for many years been allowed to moulder away
in obscurity in one of the side chapels.
Draper had entered the army early enough to be
present at Culloden. He had afterwards served with
some distinction in India, and his capture of the works
of Manila by assault was a considerable feat of arms.
The citadel still remained to be taken, and the Arch-
bishop, who was also Governor, proposed to capitulate
SOME EMINENT KINGSMEN
and so save the inhabitants from plunder. Draper
consented to accept as ransom bills for two million
dollars on the Treasury at Madrid. These were after-
wards repudiated by the Spanish Government; and
when,' in 1769, Draper defended the Marquis of Granby
against the attacks of Junius, Junius turned on Draper
and accused him of having been bribed by the red
riband of the Bath to abandon the claims of his troops
to the Manila ransom. It was true that Draper had at
last ceased to press on the Government the duty of
forcing the Spaniards to pay their debts ; but this was
because he had been assured that a war with Spain was
out of the question ; and to have declined an honour to
which he was thoroughly entitled, because his colleague,
Admiral Cornish, and the soldiers and sailors were
defrauded of their rights, would have been Quixotic
rather than sensible. Besides, he had already shown
his disinterestedness by refusing, when at Manila, to
accept from the Archbishop a large bribe if he would
abate the amount demanded for a ransom. Draper's
brother Kingsman, Christopher Anstey, defended him in
the following lines :
" But alas ! to his fortune, his interest blind,
How blamed by the sensible part of mankind !
In a land so remote, in that barbarous ground,
When victory spread her glad ensign around,
To sheath the fell sword, in a ransom engage !
So unlike many other great chiefs of the age
To feel for the helpless ! to hear the fond prayer
Of widows and orphans, to conquer and spare !
From foolish compassion to hazard that gain,
Which others by fair, lawful plunder obtain."
The author of these lines became a Fellow of King's in
KING'S COLLEGE
1745, and in 1748 as Senior Bachelor he was called
upon to make a Latin declamation in the Public Schools.
Whether this was an innovation or not is uncertain ;
Anstey, at any rate, considered it an infringement on
the College rights, and began his speech with words
which seemed to ridicule the University authorities.
The Vice-Chancellor suspended him from his degree,
and required him to make a fresh declamation, when he
introduced an ironical apology. Tradition says that
he began this second speech with the words, " Doctores
sine doctrina, Magistri Artium sine Artibus, Bacca-
laurei baculo potius quam lauro digni," but there is no
trace of such words in the author's MS.
In this second speech he admitted that his manner
might have given offence.
" Haud inficiar me rei oratoriae adeo non peritum esse ut
plurimos vestrum viderem qui vix a risu temperarent cum
tragica quadam cervicis jactatione Roscii partes non Cice-
ronis agere viderer. Quapropter vir doctissimus, qui huic
exercitationi praefuit, ipso etiam in oratiunculae meae vesti-
bule importunitatem coercuit, veritus fortasse pro singulari
sua humanitate ne severiorum virorum iracundiam com-
moverem."
This second speech failed to give satisfaction, and he
was again suspended. There was an appeal to Delegates,
who confirmed the sentence in spite of the efforts of the
Kingsmen. Anstey's son says that this was the last
Latin declamation pronounced by a Bachelor of King's
in the Schools. If so, Anstey gained his end, but at
the cost of his own M. A. degree ; for he writes of
" Granta, sweet Granta, where studious of ease
Seven years did I sleep and then lost my degrees,"
SOME EMINENT KINGSMEN 213
But he remained a Fellow till 1754, when he suc-
ceeded to a property at Trumpington, married, and led
the life of a country gentleman. His classical studies
were not wholly abandoned, for together with a brother
Kingsman, Roberts, afterwards Provost of Eton, he
made the first Latin version of Gray^s Elegy, and at a
somewhat later date he spent much time in preparing
his own sons for Eton. A bilious fever led to his
visiting Bath, and in 1766 appeared the letters in rhyme
called the New Bath Guide or Memoirs of the Blunder-
head family. The book became fashionable at once;
and Horace Walpole says, " So much wit, humour, fun
and poetry, so much originality, never met together
before. Then the man has a better ear than Dryden or
Handel." Parts of it, however, would not be tolerated
at the present day ; for he seems to have considered
that he might say anything against doctors or Metho-
dists. Even in those times objections were raised; and
he replied to them in the following lines, which also
contain a reference to his improvements at Trumping-
ton, and his farming troubles :
" May this drowsy current, (as oft he is wont),
O'erflow all my hay, may my dogs never hunt,
And O ! may some daemon, those plagues to complete,
Give me taste to improve an old family seat,
By lawjiing a hundred good acres of wheat !
Such ills be my portion, and others much worse,
If slander or calumny poison my verse ;
If ever my well-behaved Muse shall appear
Indecently droll, unpolitely severe ! "
But indecent, and it may be added profane, drollery
was just what his Muse did sometimes indulge in. In
KING'S COLLEGE
spite of this fault, he was a man of upright character,
benevolent, and public spirited ; a good father and a
warm-hearted friend. Whether he ever forgave Cam-
bridge for stopping his M.A. degree seems doubtful.
The complimentary lines, which he wrote in 1767, sound
more ironical than serious :
" Tis thine, Sacred Science ! new charms to display ;
How much <I rejoice thou hast chosen thy seat
In Granta's delightful and quiet retreat !
Where men of such piety, learning and sense,
Distribute thy gifts at so small an expense,
And season the minds of well-disciplined youth
With patriot maxims of wisdom and truth ;
Regardless of changes in Church or in State,
They ne'er court the favour or smiles of the great ;
For candour, for softness of manners renowned,
Shed the blessings of peace and contentment around ;
And far from malignity, faction and noise,
With dignity seek philosophical joys."
A still more distinguished Kingsman, seven years
j unior to Anstey, was Charles Pratt. For eight or nine
years he remained a briefless barrister, and he was so
much dispirited that he was on the point of returning
to College, and perhaps of taking Holy Orders. Even
to Antony Allen, who finished his catalogue of Kings-
men in 1750, Pratt was known only as a promising
young pleader, who had just ventured to marry and
resign his Fellowship. But two years later he became
famous by his defence of the right of juries to determine
questions of law as well as of fact in libel cases.
Throughout his career he was a champion of liberty,
and perhaps a little too much inclined to pose as such ;
whether as Lord Chief Justice he was condemning
SOME EMINENT KINGSMEN 215
arbitrary arrests, or arguing in the House of Lords as
Lord Camden against the American Stamp Act. He
rose to be Lord Chancellor in 1760. His success
was partly due to his own talents and exertions, and
partly to the support of his old friend and schoolfellow,
the elder William Pitt, from whom he may have learned
his somewhat theatrical manner. In his later days he
made the mistake of remaining in a Cabinet with men
whose policy he condemned ; and it has been said of
him that "he was unfit to stand alone, and on the
eclipse of Chatham he sank into insignificance." Yet
after Chatham's death he had the satisfaction of giving
strong and valuable support to Chatham's son in his
early political struggles, as well as of helping to pass
a Libel Law, which secured to juries the rights for
which he had contended forty years earlier. Another
Kingsman, who gained distinction in public life, was
Thomas Orde, who became Lord Bolton in 1797. As
a Scholar of King's he was chiefly remarkable for his
artistic tastes, which, no doubt, were the cause of his
subsequent friendship with Romney. He used to
caricature well-known Cambridge figures, of the lower
class, and give the profits of his etchings to his victims.
But he found more serious occupation at the Bar and
in Parliament ; he rose to be Undersecretary to Lord
Shelburne in 1782, but declined to continue in office
under Pitt. It was in Ireland, however, as Chief
Secretary to the Duke cf Rutland, 1784-1787, that he
gained most fame, for his efforts to carry out a com-
mercial union between England and Ireland and also
to establish a comprehensive scheme of education for
Ireland. To judge by Romney \> portrait, Orde was a
handsome man. Indeed, it is said that he owed his
216 KING'S COLLEGE
first success in life to his good looks and good manners.
For when the Duke of Bolton happened to pay a
visit to Cambridge, Orde, then a young scholar at
King's, was chosen to act as his guide, and he made a
favourable impression on the Duke. It is certain that
he afterwards married the Duke's daughter, and succeeded
to the name and estates of the Powletts.
No Kingsman, during the eighteenth century, after
Andrew Snape, seems to have been particularly suc-
cessful as Headmaster of Eton ; but what Thomas
Thackeray had accomplished at Harrow, that and even
more Thomas James did for Rugby. As a boy at Eton,
he had been distinguished for excellence in Latin and
Greek composition ; and at King's he had twice gained
the Members' Prize for a Latin Essay. It was in 1778
that he went to Rugby and reformed the school after
the Eton model, raising it from 60 to 245 boys, and
earning from a recent historian of the school the
title of the "creator of Rugby as it now is." On his
resignation the Trustees begged Mr. Pitt to give him
perferment, and he was made a Prebendary of Worcester
and Rector of Harvington. The Trustees also showed
their confidence in the College, which had sent them
such a man, by electing as his successor another Kings-
man, Henry Ingles. James did not forget his old
College, but founded there annual prizes for Latin
Declamations.
With all the influence of a long-established Cathedral
Choir, it might have been expected that King's College
would have become a school of music ; and the names
of some composers, including that of Provost
Hacomblen, are recorded within the first century after
the foundation. But, although in the Elizabethan age,
SOME EMINENT KINGSMEN 217
Fellows of King's are said to have cultivated the art,
there seems little trace in later days of any great
musician ; unless we may except Ralph Thicknesse, who
in 1742, being at that time the favourite candidate for
the Provostship, suddenly fell down dead, when playing
a composition of his own, as first violin, in a concert at
Bath. During the last half of the eighteenth century
the Professor of Music was a Kingsman, J. Randall ;
and it was his duty to set to music Gray's Ode for the
Installation of the Duke of Grafton as Chancellor in
1768. The poet had his own views about music, and
for three months Randall was in constant attendance,
endeavouring to comply with the author's taste by
adapting the music to the Italian style. But when he
came to the chorus, Gray said : " I have now done ;
make as much noise as you please/ 1
One name, however, certainly deserves to be recorded.
It is that of Joah Bates, who had studied under an
organist at Rochdale, before he went to Eton in 1756,
and who found encouragement to persevere in his
musical studies from Mr. Graham, one of the Eton
masters. For a short time after leaving school he was
a Pensioner of Christ's College, and he gained the
Craven University Scholarship two months before he
was admitted to his Scholarship at King's. Afterwards
he became a Fellow and Tutor ; and one of his pupils
was a son of the profligate Lord Sandwich, who at least
did one good action in making Bates his private secre-
tary and giving him a berth in the Post Office. While
still an undergraduate, Bates had conducted a perform-
ance of the Messiah at his own native town, Halifax ;
and this is said to have been the first occasion on which
an oratorio was performed north of the Trent. In
218 KING'S COLLEGE
1776 he became Conductor of the Concerts of Ancient
Music; and in 1783, in conjunction with Lord Fitz-
william and Sir Watkin Williams Wynn, he brought
about the Commemoration of Handel at Westminster
Abbey, and acted as Conductor on that memorable
occasion. Though a scholar and musician, he seems
to have been a bad financier ; and an unfortunate
investment nearly ruined him, so that his later life was
saddened by poverty. He died in 1799.
All Cambridge residents, during the latter part of
the eighteenth century, must have known by sight
Dr. Robert Glynn, who began lecturing at Cambridge
on medicine and anatomy in 1751, and after practising
for a short time at Richmond returned to Cambridge
and lived in College, where he might generally be seen
walking after dusk under Gibbs n s Building, or along the
south face of Clare Hall. He usually wore a scarlet
cloak and three-cornered hat, with pattens in rainy
weather; and was the most active, eccentric, and
benevolent of doctors. He gave gratuitous advice to
the inhabitants of the Fens, where there was a great
deal of fever and ague ; and he would never take a
fee from a Cornishman (for he was himself born near
Bodmin), nor a clergyman. Horace Walpole called
him " an old doting physician," but that was because he
believed in the genuineness of Chatterton's poems.
Lord Chatham spoke of him as " one of the cheerful
and witty sons of Apollo " ; and the younger Pitt, whom
he had attended in 1773, offered him the Professorship
of Physic in 1793. Probably Glynn felt himself too
old for such a post. But he was for some time the
leading physician of Cambridge, and his treatment had
a certain originality, for he always (so it is said) began
SOME EMINENT KINGSMEN 219
with a blister, though he would never resort to bleeding.
His habits were odd. He had no fixed hour for meals,
but there was generally a cold shoulder of mutton
standing in his rooms ; and he gave undergraduate tea-
parties of a thoroughly unconventional kind. When
Charles Simeon had to preach his first sermon at St.
Mary^s (it was on Advent Sunday, December 3, 1786),
Dr. Glynn called on Simeon the day before, and
begged him to come to his rooms and read over his
sermon. For, as he told Simeon, he would have a
critical and prejudiced audience next day. Simeon was
glad to accept the invitation, for friends were scarce in
those days. The Doctor heard the sermon, corrected
and improved it, and concluded :
"Now, Sir, as I am called out, and cannot be at St.
Mary's, I am glad I can say I have read the Sermon, and
shall be your advocate wherever I go."
No account of prominent Kingsmen of these times
would be complete without some reference to Horace
Walpole, who entered the College as a Fellow Commoner
in 1734. He does not seem to have taken kindly to
University life, and speaks of Oxford and Cambridge
as " two barbarous towns, overrun with rusticity and
mathematics."
" We have not," he writes, " the least poetry here ; for
I can't call verses on the 5th of November and 30th of
January by that name, more than four lines on a chapter
in the New Testament is an Epigram."
If, like his friend Gray, he had spent some part of
his long life as a College resident, how valuable (though
probably uncomplimentary) would his picture of College
life have been ! His character had nothing heroic
220 KING'S COLLEGE
about it ; it was hardly even serious ; and he had none
of his father's solidity. But he was the prince of letter
writers, and ahead of his age in some of his opinions as
well as his tastes. For it must be remembered to his
credit that he spoke with loathing of the Slave Trade ;
and to him, at least in some degree, we owe the revival
of a taste for Gothic Art and Romantic Literature.
Strawberry Hill was, indeed, but a gingerbread kind of
castle ; but it led the way to something better. And if
the Castle of Otranto is no masterpiece, yet without
it we might have had no Ivanhoe and no Kenilworth.
William Cole, when doubting what to do with his
collection of MSS. said that
" to give them to King's College would be to throw them
into a horse-pond; the members of that Society being
generally so conceited of their Latin and Greek that all
other studies were barbarous."
If the eight Fellows who have been described in this
chapter were at all representative specimens of the
Society, Cole's criticism must have been unjust. Two
of them were, indeed, schoolmasters ; but one was a
lawyer, one a doctor, one a politician, one a soldier, one
a musician, and one a poet. There is, however, a third
schoolmaster, whose name deserves to be recorded, that
of John Foster. As Headmaster of Eton, indeed, he
was singularly unsuccessful, being in too great a hurry
to raise the standard of education and discipline. But
he was a man of real learning. His Essay on Accent
and Quantity, published in 1761, is an elaborate defence
of Greek accentuation and an explanation of the true
relations of accent and quantity in Greek, Latin, and
English. Not only is it a work of great research, but it
SOME EMINENT KINGSMEN
shews also that in dealing with literary problems he
possessed the judgment which he lacked in his treatment
of boys ; and its publication was seasonable, at a time
when the Oxford Press was beginning to print Greek
texts without any accents. Had Foster been a Cam-
bridge Professor, instead of being Headmaster of a
Public School, he might have made a name for himself and
done something to stimulate a love of learning in others.
This list of distinguished men does not, however,
contain any Theologian ; for there seems to have been
no Kingsman, in the most important of all studies, who
can be compared to the men of an earlier generation, to
such men as Snape, Fleetwood, Hare, or Stanhope.
Simeon had hardly yet become prominent ; Sneyd Davies,
though an Archdeacon, was more of a poet than a
Theologian ; and Jack Young (brother of the well-
known Arthur Young), Fellow of Eton and Prebendary
of Worcester, who was killed out hunting when trying
a newly purchased horse with the King's hounds in 1786,
though a man of high character, unspoiled by his friend-
ship with the Duke of Grafton, and marked out for
higher preferment by Archbishop Cornwallis, can hardly
claim a place in any list of Divines.
This was, perhaps, the inevitable result of that decay
of interest in Theology which is characteristic of the
Hanoverian period. But something may have been due
to the fact that no pressure seems to have been put on
the Fellows to study Theology. Throughout the
eighteenth century " diversions" continue to be recorded ;
but they are all to Medicine, or Law, or Astronomy.
The Statute requiring the bulk of the Society to study
Divinity and take Holy Orders remained, indeed ; but
no Provost seems to have made an effort to enforce it.
CHAPTER XVI
THE AGE OF SIMEON
CHARLES SIMEON'S life at King's covers a period of fifty-
seven years, and during a great part of that time he was
the most notable man in the College. He was admitted
a Scholar in January 1779, and attended lectures on
Aristotle's Ethics and Pearson on the Creed. The
former course was especially needed, for though he was
already a good Latin scholar, he had learned but little
Greek at Eton. Cooke was then Provost, and in
Simeon's first term sent him word that in three weeks' time
there would be a celebration of the Holy Communion
in Chapel and that he must take part in it. Such was
the College rule, which, no doubt, often hardened men
into formalism ; but in Simeon's case it was the begin-
ning of a real religious life ; and though he complains
of the irreverence with which the Chapel services were
performed, yet he found in them, as an Undergraduate,
the spiritual food which he needed. Not content with
his own conversion, he collected a small congregation of
bedmakers in his rooms ; and when he was at home, he
persuaded his brothers and the servants to join in family
prayers. Such was the humble beginning of a life-long
ministry. Within a few years he was acting as a
volunteer curate at St. Edward's, where his preaching
attracted such crowds that the overworked clerk hailed
THE AGE OF SIMEON
the Vicar^s return with joy, saying, "Oh, sir, I am so
glad you are come : now we shall have some room ! " A
year later Simeon began the great work of his life as
Minister of Trinity Church, where more than a century
earlier, another Kingsman, Provost Whichcote, had
exercised so wide and wholesome an influence.
Within his own College Simeon found but little
sympathy, and was quite surprised when a brother
Fellow ventured to walk with him for a quarter of an
hour on the grass plot before Clare Hall. Perhaps he
exaggerated the antagonism which others felt ; at any
rate, he held College office from 1788 to 1798, and for
two years was Vice-Provost. A friend, writing to him
in 1789, observes that his influence in the College was
evidently increasing, and that the Provost was inclined
to co-operate with him in reforming the College. In
1791, when, with Dr. Glynn's help he had, as Vice-
Provost, sent out of residence a Fellow senior to himself
for scandalous conduct, Provost Cooke wrote that
"yourself and Dr. Glynn will ever have my hearty
thanks for your prudent and spirited conduct." A
reference has already been made to his first sermon at
St. Mary^s. There was a crowd of Undergraduates,
many of whom evidently meant to disturb and annoy
the preacher. However, he very soon had complete
command of his audience; although the prejudices of
the time were shewn, when he remained for some time
on his knees after the benediction, by one man saying
to another, " Just look at that hypocrite ! what a time
he goes on praying ! " On the other hand, as two men
were leaving the church, one said to the other, " Well,
Simeon is no fool, however ! " " Fool ! " replied his
companion, " did you ever hear such a sermon before ? "
224 KING'S COLLEGE
In order to secure more time for prayer and study,
Simeon formed the habit of rising at 4 A.M. ; not, how-
ever, without an effort, but he paid a fine of s. 6d. to
his bedmaker if he failed to get up; and when that
proved an insufficient stimulus, he determined, if he was
late again, to walk down to the Cam and throw a
guinea into the water ; and on one occasion he actually
did this. One other habit he had, which no doubt
found more sympathy with his neighbours. He was
very fond of riding ; and when George Corrie entered
the University in 1813 with a letter of introduction to
Simeon, the writer said, " When you call, he will pro-
bably be either in the stable with his horses, or by the
sick-beds of his parishioners. 11 He might have inherited
a considerable fortune from his brother Edward, who
died in 1814, but he declined to receive more than a
legacy of Jl 5,000, the interest of which he devoted
towards charitable objects which his brother had
supported ; and, after making this disposition of his
money, he considered himself justified in retaining his
Fellowship, the loss of which would have seemed to him
a desertion of the post of duty. Two years before this
he had settled in the rooms in which he eventually
died.
The second Provost of Simeon's time was Humphrey
Sumner, son of John Sumner, the former Provost.
Humphrey was Rector of Dunton in Essex, at the time
of his promotion in 1797 ; and he received the thanks
of the College in the following year for resigning this
living. Apparently it was a novelty for a Provost to
be contented with the emoluments and duties of a single
office. Sumner, however, may have had special reasons
for resigning, as he was a victim to gout, and so deaf
THE AGE OF SIMEON 225
that he never knew whether he was speaking in a high
or low tone. Ben Drury, an impertinent young fellow
of his own College, used to make the most uncompli-
mentary remarks to him in the manner of a person
conversing on ordinary topics ; and the Provost, quite
unconscious of what was really said, received these
remarks with the blandest courtesy. One of the
Scholars, Scrope Davies, treated the Provost no better.
A game hamper was found one morning hung on the
handle of the Lodge door, directed to the Provost with
" Mr. Scrope Davies's compliments. 1 ' In those days,
when game could not be bought, such a present was
particularly acceptable ; but the hamper, when opened,
was found to contain a dead cat and even less attractive
objects. Of course Scrope Davies was convened; but
he coolly maintained that, if he had sent the hamper,
his own name was the last which he would have chosen
to attach to it ; and so he escaped.
There is some reason to think that the first years of
Sumner's Provostship were marked by a deterioration
in discipline. The Public Advertiser for July 19, 1798,
quotes from " a Morning Paper the following statement
of the origin of the existing disputes between the
Provost and Scholars of King's College, Cambridge.""
" A number of Tradesmen in the town of Cambridge
represented to the Provost of King's College that debts to
a considerable amount had been incurred by the Scholars
for various articles both of luxury and necessity, and that
they were anxious these debts should be liquidated. The
Provost consulted the Vice- Provost, Bursars, and Fellows
on the subject, when it was unanimously agreed, as an act
of justice, that a part of the boys' emoluments should be
appropriated towards the payment. This resolution so
226 KING'S COLLEGE
irritated them, that they pulled up the pavement and broke
all the windows in the Old Court, destroyed the Convention
Bell, and committed various other acts of violence. The
Provost, in consequence, ordered them to be detained in
College during the whole of the vacation, or until they
gave up the first aggressors. The latter they refused.
Dr. Goodall, of Eton, happening to be there, represented
to the Scholars the heinousness of the offence, and advised
them to repair every injury, and afterwards go in a body
to the Provost, express their contrition, and solicit forgive-
ness ; which they very reluctantly did. The Provost told
them he should take one fortnight to consider of it, and
here the matter rests for the present. Yesterday the fort-
night expired, when the boys expected to be liberated."
There is no allusion to this affair in the College
records, and perhaps the story is mythical. But there
were certainly some very troublesome Undergraduates in
residence at this time; and one Scholar had to be
placed in temporary confinement as a lunatic. Yet at
this very time there was in residence a Scholar, John
Bird Sumner, who lived to be the one Archbishop of
Canterbury educated at King's College. He gained
some distinction at the University, and afterwards
made a name for himself as a writer of Evangelical
Theology. As Bishop of Chester, 1828-48, he was
most energetic in providing more churches and schools
in his diocese ; as Archbishop, though appointed by the
Duke of Wellington, he supported the Whigs on the
questions of Roman Catholic Emancipation and Parlia-
mentary Reform ; and he also took the side of " com-
prehension " in the Hampden and Gorham controversies.
The fiery Bishop Phillpotts protested against the Arch-
bishop's "heresy"; and it was not till Sumner lay
THE AGE OF SIMEON 227
dying in 1862 that the charge was withdrawn. The
portrait of the Archbishop by Eddis, in the College
Hall, represents a benevolent and dignified gentleman ;
but there is not much sign of intellectual force, or of
statesmanlike firmness. Bishop Wilberforce described a
speech of Sumner's as " like himself, good, gentle, loving,
and weak. 11
J. B. Simmer had become a Fellow in 1801 ; and five
years afterwards there arrived at King's a group of
Scholars who reflected no less credit on their College.
For in 1806 Thomas Rennell, Stratford Canning, and
John Lonsdale were admitted; and, a little later,
Edward Craven Hawtrey and John Patteson. Canning's
stay, as a Scholar, was short, as he joined the diplomatic
service in 1807; he then became a Fellow- Commoner
hoping to come back and keep the terms necessary for
a degree. A letter from Rennell tells him that the
Provost and one or two of the Fellows were anxious to
keep him if possible :
" as for the rest of the College, they know little and care
less about the matter. The Scholars gaped a little on
being told that you were gone into ' foreign parts ' but
even that, as well as every other idea, is now totally defaced
from their minds, and they grunt on in their ancient piggish
apathy."
Eventually, in 1812, Canning received a M.A. degree,
by royal mandate. He describes his undergraduate life
as one
"of pleasant monotony, in which an easy amount of study
was mingled with healthy exercise and social enjoyments
suited to the character of the place and its youthful occu-
pants. I had friends or at least acquaintances in other
Colleges besides my own ; but I had nothing to do with
228 KING'S COLLEGE
horses, carriages, or boats. Lectures and rare compositions
were the only demands upon our time."
He volunteered to study Mathematics, and nearly gave
them up in despair. But he belonged to what he calls
a " spouting club," in which Lord Palmerston had made
his first flight of oratory.
His bed maker, Mrs. Harradine, called him a nice
" still stiddy man," and John Lonsdale, who left Eton a
few months later, writes to him in the warmest terms,
and quotes Goodall, the Headmaster, as saying that no
boy ever left the school with so good a character from
all persons and all ages. This quiet exterior concealed
a will of iron. In 1810 he was left alone at Constanti-
nople, with no ambassador to guide him and no instruc-
tions from home, to re-establish English influence and
to, make a peace between Russia and the Porte. The
skill and courage with which he accomplished both
these purposes, and finally, May 28, 1812, brought
about the Treaty of Bucharest, thereby setting free a
Russian army to act against Napoleon at the critical
moment, are astonishing in so young a man. Canning's
achievements in diplomacy at the age of twenty-four
may well be compared with Pitt's Premiership at the
same age. The Duke of Wellington called it the
" most important service that ever fell to the lot of any
individual to perform." He, indeed, attributed it to his
own brother, who was then Foreign Minister. In
reality the Foreign Office just then was "fast asleep"
under Lord Wellesley, and the most important despatch
which Canning received from him related to some
classical MSS. supposed to be concealed in the Seraglio.
The fate of nations was left to the care of the Cambridge
Undergraduate. The influence which Stratford Canning
THE AGE OF SIMEON
exercised over the Porte at the time of the Crimean
War was perhaps more complete, but it did not achieve
greater results, and is not so wonderful in a fully
accredited Ambassador as it was in an inexperienced
Attache. A portrait of him, as Lord Stratford de
Redcliffe, when he was nearly ninety years old, painted
by H. Herkomer and now in the College Hall, gives
some notion of the handsome countenance and piercing
eye which no doubt helped to impress the Oriental mind.
John Lonsdale came from Eton with a great reputa-
tion as a Latin Scholar, which he maintained at
Cambridge by gaining a University Scholarship. In-
deed, the Latin verses, which he wrote when a boy of
fifteen, might excite the envy of a generation with whom
the composition of original Latin verse has become
almost a lost art. But he was more than a scholar.
Gunning, who at any rate had a long experience on
which to found his judgment, says of Lonsdale that he
" kept his exercises in the Divinity School in a manner
superior to any other person I ever listened to. He dis-
covered a fallacy in an argument quicker than any other
man I ever met, discussed each syllogism on its own merits,
and when he arrived at the end he disposed of the argu-
ment in the fewest possible words, but so completely that
the opponent felt himself incapable of rejoining."
In the last year of his life the same quality of intellectual
thoroughness was noticed by a gentleman who, having
heard the Bishop's address to the Church Congress at
Wolverhampton, observed, " That's all ; there is nothing
more to be said."
Lonsdale became Rector of St. George's, Bloomsbury,
and Preacher at Lincoln's Inn. In 1840 the Fellows of
Eton elected him as their Provost; but, finding that
230 KING'S COLLEGE
his friend Hodgson was the nominee of the Crown, he
retired. Three years later, he became Bishop of
Lichfield, where he won the reputation of being the
best Bishop that the diocese had ever had; being a
model of justice, kindness, humility, and shrewd sense.
He belonged to no party, but managed to keep peace
in a stormy time, and to do a great work in his diocese
in the way of Church extension. When the see of
Canterbury was vacant in 1848, it was believed that
Lonsdale would be Archbishop Howley's successor.
But Lord John Russell was bent on putting down
Puseyism, and thought he could do this by appointing
a thorough-going Evangelical. Had Sir Robert Peel
still been in power, a different choice would probably
have been made. Lonsdale, however, if a High
Churchman at all, was one of a very moderate type.
His relations with Nonconformists may be inferred
from the fact that the Independent Minister of Eccles-
hall, where the Episcopal Palace then was, not only
attended the Bishop's funeral, but also put his own
Chapel into mourning. It may be doubted whether a
better scholar than Lonsdale, or a more faultless
character, was ever trained in King Henry's two
Foundations. Certainly the year 1806, which saw two
such men as Canning and Lonsdale admitted to the
College, was an " annus mirabilis " for King's.
Thomas Rennell, of the same year, was also a man of
brilliant promise as a scholar and theologian, but he
died at the age of thirty-seven. Gunning, however,
who had kept an Act against him in 1822, on "the
necessity of a connection between Church and State,"
was of opinion that u though he abounded in eloquence
yet in reasoning he was very defective." But he does
THE AGE OF SIMEON 231
not hesitate to call him a man of undoubted talents
and prodigious acquirements.
Francis Hodgson was some years senior to this
remarkable trio, and acted as Tutor, 1808-14. When
Provost Sumner offered him the post, he found that he
was expected to lecture on Pearson and Locke. For
the latter he wished to substitute some literary topic ;
observing that his own Tutor, Lloyd, who had studied
Locke deeply, had failed to make his lectures either
interesting or intelligible. However, he had to give
way. Hodgson's opinion of his own College was not
very favourable :
"Our having all been at the same school certainly
deadened emulation by placing us at that rank in Cam-
bridge, in which we relatively stood at Eton. Neither
had we any public honours to contend for ; and ambition
too often expired in indolence."
He himself was far from indolent either in mind or
body. His spare time was spent in writing reviews and
poetry, besides an annual examination at Rugby. More
than once he walked from Cambridge to London, and
thought nothing of walking from London to Eton.
What would he not have accomplished with a bicycle !
His advice to Lonsdale, not to reside at King's, is given
in a poetic form :
" But haste to life ! no glorious scope
Can in these walls be found ;
The grave of disappointed Hope,
Ambition's early bound.
Here indolence with baneful frost
Shall nip the vernal bloom,
Here shame shall mourn o'er glory lost,
And Vice await its doom."
232 KING'S COLLEGE
Perhaps Juvenal, whom he had already translated in
1807, inspired him with a somewhat pessimistic view of
his neighbours.
During his residence as Tutor he became an intimate
friend of Lord Byron, and tried to win him back from
scepticism. Harness gives an account of a visit to
Newstead in 1811, when conversations were held which,
after fifty years, he could not recall " without a deep
feeling of admiration for the judicious zeal and affec-
tionate earnestness which Dr. Hodgson evinced in his
advocacy of the truth." At a later time he tried to
reconcile Byron with his wife ; he was more successful
in preventing a duel between his friend and Moore.
Contemporary with Hodgson at King's was Harry
Drury, for forty-one years a Harrow master, great both
as a teacher and ruler of boys; and in 1820 having
ninety pupils out of the 250 then in the school. Lord
Byron had been his pupil, and was attached to him,
Drury was a collector of Greek books and MSS.,
and " a great walker with an utter contempt for an
umbrella.'"
In 1809 a controversy of some importance arose at
King's. There had been a disagreement between the
College and the tenant of their tithes at Prescot in
Lancashire, the result of which was that no fine was
paid and money for dividends ran short. Accordingly
in November 1808, a vote had been passed to borrow
^9000 stock from the Chest Fund, which could only
be used for defending law suits or enlarging the College
property. A former Fellow, Henry Dampier, acting
with the concurrence of another old Kingsman, Sir
J. Mansfield, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas,
appealed to the Visitor against the action of the
THE AGE OF SIMEON 233
College; and the Visitor (Bishop Tomline) decided
that the Fellows must refund the four dividends which
they had received, and restore to the Chest Fund both
principal and interest. In the course of his appeal
Mr. Dampier took occasion to object to the policy
which he attributed to the College of getting rid of
beneficial leases and copyholds.
" I have heard from good authority that this is but the
beginning of an extensive system : that by this sort of
Loan all the estates of the College are to be brought into
hand and let at a Rack Rent. I very much doubt whether
the projectors of this plan are aware of the vigilance and
attention necessary to look after a large and dispersed
Real property so let. The attention of the Fellows would
be diverted to pursuits very different from those for which
the College was founded and is supported."
But the College were wiser in this particular than
Mr. Dampier. Finding that their copyhold estates let
on lives were valued at c12,000 a year but only brought
in ^2000, they determined in 1812 that, where two out
of three lives had dropped, no renewal should be
granted ; and thus they began a reform which is hardly
yet completed.
There was also a prospect of increased revenue from
another cause. As early as 1798 the College had offered
easy terms to their tenants at Grantchester and Coton,
if they would bear the cost of obtaining an Act of
Parliament for " dividing and allotting the open and
commonable fields, commonable land and waste grounds
within the parishes of Grantchester and Coton." Other
enclosures had since then taken place, including the one
which altered the whole character of the land lying
234 KING'S COLLEGE
immediately to the west of Cambridge, and ultimately
provided Fellows of Colleges with gardens, and Under-
graduates with cricket grounds.
It was left, however, to a later generation to deal
with the beneficial leases. That system, which made
the tenant almost joint owner with the landlord, was
not ill suited to a time when College circuits could only
be made on horseback ; especially if, as was the case
with King's College, a large proportion of the property
lay at a distance of 100 or even 200 miles. The coming
of railways made it possible for Colleges to undertake
the responsibilities and receive the profits of a modern
landowner ; and, though backward in their educational
policy, King's was one of the foremost Colleges to ven-
ture on financial reform. The change could not be
made without some temporary sacrifice ; although an
Act of Parliament enabled the College to borrow money
in lieu of the fines which they had surrendered, and the
discovery on their eastern counties estates of a fossil
called Coprolites, which made a valuable manure, helped
to furnish them with capital for carrying out improve-
ments only too sure to be necessary on the expiry of a
long beneficial lease. It would seem that for the last
two centuries the College had managed its estates
wisely ; at least if we may judge by the steady increase
of dividends, and by the large sums always forthcoming
to be spent on repairs and on additions to the College
buildings. In two respects the College must always
have been an easy landlord. Game preserving did not
diminish the farmer's profits ; and if a right of sporting
was nominally reserved to the College, this amounted
to little more than an occasional friendly visit to the
tenant. At other times the farmer probably shot or
THE AGE OF SIMEON
trapped as he pleased. Nor is there any record of the
College attempting to influence the politics of the
tenants. The College, if not always an improving, has
never been an interfering landlord.
In the last year of Provost Simmer's life, 1813, the
College embarked on two adventures, neither of which
turned out successful. They petitioned the Lords of
the Treasury to grant them a " close " at Grantchester,
which had belonged to a man named Kidman. Kidman
had formerly robbed the College of "many hundred
pounds of plate and medals," and so was enabled to
purchase the property, which he now forfeited for
felony. The College, as Lords of the Manor, claimed
a right to the forfeiture, under an Act passed in the
reign of Henry VI. At the same time they complained
that since 1700 they had been defrauded of two tuns of
Gascony wine, which Henry VI. had granted annually,
and instead of which a compensation in money had
afterwards been paid. My Lords referred them to the
Law Courts to make good their claims ; and nothing
more seems to have been attempted.
Towards the end of the same year they raised an
objection to the custom by which Fellows of Eton held
Livings. This was contrary to the Eton Statutes and
to the oath taken by Fellows that they would not make
use of any dispensation exempting them from observance
of the Statutes. Such a dispensation had been granted
by Queen Elizabeth in 1566,
" because we certainly perceive the price meet for main-
tenance of hospitality and living to be far greater at this
day, than in former times, and that it is not inconvenient
for you to have some cures abroad, where you may both
teach and inform our subjects in their duties to God and us."
KING'S COLLEGE
The controversy went on for some time, till the
Visitor decided, on April 8, 1816, that the oath taken
by the Eton Fellows did not debar them from profiting
by Elizabeth's dispensation. The apparent impertinence
of one College interfering with the practice of another
is to be explained by the intimate connection between
the two. The Kingsmen held that they had a claim
on the Eton Fellowships, and were injured by any
diminution in the number of vacancies, and the suc-
cession was certain to be more rapid, if on taking a
Living every Fellow of Eton vacated his Fellowship.
Nor was this their first protest. As early as 1636 they
had preferred complaints before Archbishop Laud, that
aliens were admitted to Eton Fellowships, that the
Statutable number of Fellowships was not maintained,
and that the Scholars were stinted in food and clothing
in order that the revenues might be divided among a
few Fellows. Laud did something to satisfy the Kings-
men, by deciding that five out of seven Fellowships
should be reserved for members of their College, and
this settlement was confirmed after the Restoration.
A case of a different kind had been referred to the
Visitor ten years before the appeal against Eton. A
clerical Fellow, named Bearblock, had long lived in
Essex with some one who passed as his wife and was
treated as such by their neighbours. At last his right
to a Fellowship was challenged, and he was ejected. The
Visitor had to decide whether unanimity was necessary
for this purpose. He decided that it was not, and at
the same time administed a severe rebuke to the
single Fellow who had ventured to maintain that Bear-
block's case was not provided for by the Statutes. More
than thirty years later, two similar cases occurred. A
THE AGE OF SIMEON 237
Mr. Cliffe Hatch, who had lived first at Brecknock and
then at Worplesdon in Surrey, was deprived of his
Fellowship ; the accuser in this case being Sir F.
Wetherall, who claimed the vacancy for his grandson,
a boy at Eton.
In the case of Mr. Hunt, a resident Fellow, it was
decided by a majority at a small meeting, that there
were not sufficient grounds for summoning him before
the College. It seems probable that the Fellows were
determined not to condemn a man, who had lived among
them for many years, and had made himself useful as a
Bursar of the College.
CHAPTER XVII
THE END OF OLD COURT
ON Simmer's death, Thomas Rennell, Dean of Win-
chester, father of the Scholar of 1806, was a candidate
for the Provostship, and wrote to ask for Hodgson's
support, March 26, 1814 :
" I fear you will think me very presumptuous, in placing
myself before you as candidate for the succession to the
Provostship. But as I thought I discerned, when I had
the happiness of seeing you, that a large portion of the
milk of human kindness was combined with your high
talents and attainments, I trust that whatever may be the
part you take in this contest you will receive with candour
my application for your support. I can only add that, if
by the kindness of my friends I should succeed, my resi-
dence upon my post would be constant."
The applicant had a great reputation as a scholar and
preacher, and in 1794 had preached a Commencement
Sermon on the French Revolution before Pitt, which had
gained him the Mastership of the Temple. It seems
strange that a Dean of Winchester should condescend
to apply for the Headship of a College, and also that
he should think it necessary to promise that he would
reside. But as yet, perhaps, it could not be taken for
granted that Sumner^s example, in resigning his Living,
would be followed by his successors.
THE END OF OLD COURT 239
The electors, however, preferred George Thackeray,
a member of a family well known at Eton and King's.
His grandfather, Thomas, had been a strong candidate
for the Provostship in 1743, and it was thought that
his uncle, Elias Thackeray, might have been elected
instead of Cooke in 1772 if he had offered himself as a
candidate. The father of George Thackeray was a
doctor at Windsor, who died young, and the son would
never have become even a Scholar at King's if George III.
had not persuaded an old Fellow who resided at
Windsor to resign in time to create a vacancy just
before the election of 1797.
Thackeray soon returned to Eton as a Master, and in
a few more years became Lower Master as well as Chap-
lain in Ordinary to the King. Elected Provost at the
early age of thirty-seven, he might reasonably have
been expected to become a prominent figure in the
University, but his activity was much impaired by bad
health. He had met with an accident at a cricket
match when he was an undergraduate, the ball hitting
his side and injuring him so much that he was not
expected to recover, and the effect on his health was
permanent. Indeed, a tradition, preserved by the oldest
Kingsman now living, Mr. Tucker, says that the Fellows
were anxious to elect Ben Drury, a popular but im-
provident Eton Master, but the vacancy came too soon.
Drury was too young, or there was some other difficulty
at the moment, and in electing Thackeray they thought
they were putting in some one who could not live more
than a few years. However, as Mr. Tucker writes :
" That was in 1815. I saw him placidly looking into
the shops in the main street of Cheltenham in 1845
and Provost still."
240 KING'S COLLEGE
Besides want of health, another misfortune which
helped to depress his spirits was the loss of his wife,
who died in 1818, leaving him an only daughter. The
daughter was born in a house in Wimpole Street, where
Mrs. Thackeray was attended by Sir Richard Croft,
whose mind was unhinged by his recent failure in the
case of Princess Charlotte ; and it was in this house that
the unfortunate surgeon shot himself, perhaps from a
presentiment that a second failure was imminent.
Provost Thackeray's favourite pursuits were the study
of Shakespeare and of Natural History; but he also
knew by heart whole poems of Walter Scott ; and those
who were admitted to the hospitality of the Lodge,
where his sister-in-law, Miss Cottin, lived and acted as
mistress, found the Provost a master of the art of con-
versation. The well-known scholar, Dr. Parr, was a
frequent visitor, and observed : " There are two things,
Mr. Provost, that I always enjoy here roast pig, and
the drive to the Gogmagog Hills in your coach and
four."
Like most of his family, he was a handsome man, and
he seems to have concealed under a rather stiff manner
a really kind heart, for it is said that, if a young Fellow
was out of health and needed change of air, the Provost
would supply him with the necessary funds.
The habits of those days, however, did not encourage
much intercourse between Heads and Undergraduates,
and an old Kingsman writes :
" We seldom saw him excepting when he occasionally
appeared in Chapel on a week day, and when the news
spread rapidly through the rooms that white ties were
indispensable. We appeared at the Lodge after examina-
tions, but there was very little sympathy between the
THE END OF OLD COURT 241
Head and the junior members, or consciousness on our side
that we were cared for certainly there was no hospitality
shewn."
Another old Kingsman describes his first experience
of a visit at the Lodge, at the end of Term, when prizes
in books or in money for regular attendance at Chapel
were awarded to some ; and he himself received a repri-
mand for mispronouncing the name " Tychicus " in
reading a lesson for the first time. There is no doubt
that Thackeray could be severe on occasion. Once in a
dispute at a meeting, when a Bursar was rude enough to
say to him, " Ah ! Pontius Pilate was a Provost," he
replied, "True, Mr. H., and Judas Iscariot was a"* Bur-
sar." His cousin, the novelist, went to call on him in
1850, and found him " perfectly healthy, handsome,
stupid and happy, and he isn't a bit changed in twenty
years." But, at seventy-three years of age, a man has
some right to be stupid, and, as he died within a few
months, perhaps there was some mistake about the
health.
The election to the Provostship in 1814 was not the
only occasion on which the houses of Thackeray and
Rennell were opposed to each other. Martin Thackeray,
a cousin of the Provost, had been elected annually to
some College office from 1815 to 1826, and in this last
year was made Vice-Provost. A junior Fellow, George
Rennell, in the following autumn appealed to the Visitor
and complained " that so much College money bestowed
in so many appointments on one individual could not
be contemplated by the Founder " ; and that younger
members had been discouraged from residing in College
and becoming serviceable to its interests by this " heap-
ing office and emolument on certain individuals as
Q
242 KING'S COLLEGE
private friendship, interest, or caprice afford a cause or
direct the will of the Provost." Whereupon, at a meeting
on November 7, 1827, the nine Seniors present declared
that " the Reflection cast upon the Provost was utterly
without foundation," and expressed their regret that the
Visitor, in his answer to the appeal, had ignored, instead
of censuring, "so highly objectionable a clause." * In
November of the following year, 1828, a strenuous
effort was made to oust Martin Thackeray from the
Vice-Provostship, and when that failed, to prevent
Charles Simeon, who was a warm supporter of Martin
Thackeray, from being elected Dean. There were fre-
quent adjournments, and the list of officers was not
completed till January 31, 1829.
Martin Thackeray is highly praised by Gunning, who
tells us that Thackeray was a great advocate for those
reforms in the examination of the Eton boys, " which
were for a long period strenuously resisted by the Pro-
vost, by Goodall, and by Keate." Thackeray was more
successful in reforms within his own province. Before
his time, when Fellows had friends to visit, they used to
give a round of dinners of the most expensive kind ;
but
"he introduced such a system of neatness and elegance
at the table over which he presided, that the Fellows took
their friends into Hall, and then adjourned to their own
rooms for wine and dessert."
It was not that he himself cared for good living, for he
always dined off mutton and rice pudding. Gunning
tells us that at a contested election for the county
* Mr. Tucker's reminiscences represent George Rennell's charac-
ter in a more favourable light. See p. 248.
THE END OF OLD COURT 243
Thackeray refused to canvass, on behalf of a friend, for
the vote of a tradesman largely employed by the
College, thinking it unfair to put any pressure on him.
He was, in short, a very highminded man, impatient of
what he thought to be abuses, and somewhat intolerant
of men who adopted a low standard. He could appre-
ciate Simeon, but most of the Seniors seemed to him
men " with little disposition to do anything for the
Founder, who had done so much for them."
In 1817 the Butt Close controversy was re-opened by
the College proposing to resume possession of the part
of the Close hitherto let to Clare College. However, it
was eventually arranged that Clare should become pro-
prietors of the part which they occupied, and should
surrender to King's not only a piece of ground at the
north-west corner of the Chapel, but also the White
Horse Inn and other houses between King's Lane and
the Bull Hotel ; and this settlement was ratified by
Act of Parliament.
During the next few years various alterations were
made in the College buildings and grounds. Iron gates
were put up at the west door of the Chapel, and under
the north and south Porches ; the old Clock and Pent-
house at the north-east corner were removed, and a
plantation was made on the south side of the College
field across the Cam. The College stables were also
removed to their present position. Even more con-
spicuous an alteration than these was the building of a
new bridge. A surveyor having reported that the old
one was likely to fall into the river, it was determined,
September 30, 1818, that a new bridge of stone should
be placed in a line with the south walk, and the old
walk across the "Quarters" changed into two "mounds,"
244 KING'S COLLEGE
and some of the trees cut down. At the same time ivy
and trees were planted under Clare wall. The cost of
these improvements was naturally more than had been
anticipated ; and Simeon generously gave 700 to help
the College. Whether the College really needed the
help is doubtful. In 1817 they gave up their feast on
March 25, " owing to the present distressed state of the
country ," and contributed 40 guineas for the relief of
the poor; and in the years which follow there are
frequent instances of abatements of rent owing to
agricultural distress; but in 1818 they were able to
vote no less than 11 dividends i.e., to each senior
,330, and ^220 to each M.A. Fellow ; and ten years
later it was ordered that all Tenants, who failed to pay
their rent and fines within three months after they
became due, should be charged 5 per cent., a penalty
which it certainly would not be possible to exact at the
present day. Moreover, they were about to embark on
the largest building operation known since the founda-
tion of the College. There may sometimes have been
difficulty about the actual specie needed for immediate
use ; and on December 14, 1825, the College accepted
an offer from Simeon to bring down from London *75Q
in cash and notes from Messrs. Hoare for the ensuing
quarterage. It does not appear whether Simeon
travelled by coach, or whether he rode from town with
the money packed in his saddle-bags.
The year 1822 is an important epoch in the history
of the College buildings. The old Court no longer
satisfied the requirements of the age. It must have
been gloomy and sunless, as Elias Thackeray complained
in 1790, when he had to write an epigram for some
slight College offence :
THE END OF OLD COURT 245
" Mirarisne, meae si tardum forte Camoenae
Ingenium, et votis absit Apollo meis ?
Unde etenim has veniat nobis ille aequus in aedes,
Quas numquam roseo conspicit ore, Deus ? "
The habits too of those who lived in the old Court
were more picturesque than academical. Mr. Tucker,
who afterwards held the College Rectory of Dunton in
Essex and is still living, has left us a graphic account of
his own experiences in 1822-25. In his time the upper
floor was no longer used except for lumber-rooms; a
Freshman began life on the ground floor and was after-
wards promoted to the floor above, where the rooms
were larger and better lighted, besides being panelled in
oak. One article of furniture is said to have passed on
from tenant to tenant viz., the curtains, which changed
their colour under the dyer's hands, as well as their
price, but remained as fixtures for all time.
It was the duty of the Scholar who lived immediately
above the Freshman to take him in hand and initiate
him in his duties. For a week or more the "Nib"
hardly dared to go out of sight of his " Chum." Tucker
describes the ample repast given him, by way of
welcome, by his chum, John Wilder ; and those who
knew the late Vice-Provost of Eton in after days will
readily believe that the hospitality was unstinted.
The Court itself was
" wholly unpaved, rough-gravelled, and rather grotesque
under its ancient and modern look ; with its bricklayer's
white-sided schools ; tiled Hall, and red-bricked wall,
screening the lower side of the modern kitchens. The
Hall was moderate in size and of no style, panelled and
painted, with a central stove. It had five tables ; four for
246 KING'S COLLEGE
dining, the fifth for hats and caps. Always very popular
and deservedly on Feast Days."
" Most of us/' Mr. Tucker writes, " had dogs. Dogs and
King's were in a manner identical. None of us ever went
a single step out of College in cap or gown. Dog, top-hat,
and walking-stick. Why not? we had nothing to do
beyond a Greek or English Lecture at 11, not always
that ; and at no time over long. It was little more than
a distraction. To be sure we had Chapel at 8, our great
grievance, as no Chapels were allowed us ; and it was so
monotonous to get up every morning at 8. The authorities
had no doubt felt this, and had provided a relief. It was
in the form of a Latin epigram of four lines, in which utter
grief was usually expressed at the power of sleep, and the
regret which must be felt by the Dean at our absence.
The same epigram was sufficient for the whole three years
of residence. In the fervour of a first Term I had com-
posed two, which were submitted alternately with the
regularity of a loom.
" It may be seen, as I have already said, that taking it
as a whole we had a good deal of leisure ; and that after
the strain of Lecture we had only to think of our constitu-
tions in the Madingly, Grantchester, Gogmagog and other
roads ; or quietly to saunter into Deighton's, and look at
his books ; or to read the morning papers in the Union
until lunch time between 1 and 2. Stilton was nearly
universal in the book-case cupboard, supplemented with ale
and bread from the Buttery. Some preferred a chop in
the Kitchen, hardly off the gridiron with potato from the
steam, which, considering that Hall was at 4, presumed
an unusual vitality.
" But these are trifles. In the summer of my first year,
Maturin, afterwards Vicar of Ringwood, organised an
instrumental Band of Kingsmen and others. Some dozen
or so of players with Band instruments, formed a circle in
THE END OF OLD COURT 247
the midst of Old Court, Maturin, a very fair violinist, stood
at their head as conductor and leader. The programme
chiefly from overtures. Bishop's Guy Mannering was a
favourite, and if I remember rightly Rossini's William Tell.
They rehearsed in Maturin's rooms, and played in the
Court remarkably well. No one was invited ; but the
strains were full and sonorous, waving afar ; and many
came within the iron gates to listen. Vice Provost, Deans
and Tutors took not the slightest notice ; perhaps they
were musical."
It so happened that just about this time a real
musical genius was a member of the Society. This was
William Sterndale Bennett, who from 1824-26 was a
King's Chorister, but at the early age of ten was trans-
planted to the London Academy of Music.
Old Court, however, was, as Mr. Tucker tell us,
" not always harmonious. Very noisy sometimes ; roughish
games after a sort, with lots of small College loafers inter-
mixed ; not always best behaved ; mostly old oppidans
with much freedom of speech among themselves. Occa-
sionally a casement from the Schools would open, and a
voice protest ; ' Non possumus procedere propter ' that
' Propter ' would be the last word heard. Apologies were
loudly shouted back in the doggiest of Latin, and the
window would shut with a snap."
The Lectures which Mr. Tucker had to attend were
either English or Greek. The former were given by the
Vice-Provost, and consisted of " Locke on the Under-
standing." They do not seem to have been taken very
seriously by the Scholars ; and the Lecturer did little
more than read half sentences from the author and then
ask one of his class for the conclusion of the sentence.
248 KING'S COLLEGE
More interest was taken in a Lecture on Aristophanes
given by Richard Byam, a great favourite ; each of the
class took the part of one of the " dramatis personae "
and construed in turn. On Sunday evenings at 6 P.M.
the Vice-Provost lectured on the Greek Testament ; but
the preparation for this consisted in a wine party after
Hall ; and the results were not satisfactory.
There was one among the Fellows who wished to
raise the standard of the teaching. This was George
Rennell.
" On the vacancy of a Tutorship he applied for it. But
unhappily he was a ' persona ingrata ' to the Provost. The
Provost hated change, and set his face firmly against any ;
and Rennell had been a reformer in a small way, of course
an unsuccessful one. But he was not only a competent
aspirant to the honour, but an only one. There was not a
single resident at that time in the College whom the
Provost could appoint ; and turning a deaf ear to Rennell
he proposed to substitute an out-College man.
" Rennell appealed to our Visitor, Kaye, Bishop of
Lincoln and Master of Christ's. It was a novel application
of the Visitor's powers ; but a week's appeal to the Statutes
might reasonably have been thought sufficient fora decision.
Month after month passed. Rennell re-appealed. He was
not to be foiled by delay. To no purpose. Oracle dumb.
At last the climax came.
" The Bishop and the Provost were on most friendly
terms, and the former accepted an invitation to dinner.
One of his Fellows remonstrated with him for going while
the Appeal was on as an indecency. The answer rumoured
at the time was : ' I don't see why I should lose a good
dinner because of the Appeal.' At all events the Bishop
dined ; and very soon afterwards the Appeal was dismissed ;
and an out-College Tutor appointed. One may feel for
THE END OF OLD COURT 249
Rennell; but the change as a principle was of infinite
advantage to King's."
Although Mr. Tucker represents himself and his con-
temporaries as rather an idle set, yet he and a brother
Kingsman, Best, gave up some time to the study of
French, German, and Italian; the only available
teacher of German being a young tobacconist in the
Petty Cury. In fact, they were ready to learn whatever
Cambridge was not prepared to teach.
It is evident from Mr. Tucker's account that some of
the resident Fellows did not set a good example to
their juniors. One of this class was Edward Pote, who
though in full orders had long ceased from any clerical
duties.
" He was to be seen throughout the year in strong, stout,
white Russia ducks mostly a little frayed at the heel ;
but coat, always black, which had a degree of merit at a
time when every one else had swallow-tailed coats of blue,
green, olive, or various shades of brown with gilt buttons.
He was a constant attendant in Hall except on shooting
days, when he dined in his rooms. Never once in Chapel
in my time, but invariable in the Old Court ' Combi.' He
was a good shot; a thorough sportsman over King's lands
and farms, and occasionally, like the Highlander, a little
' over the Border.' But he was a thoroughly fair sports-
man, and a true lover of animals, as his outer room testified.
There was in that neither carpet nor curtains ; low, green
Venetian blinds, as they were then called, shut in the
windows. There was his dog, a setter, naturally enough in
one corner. Then there were his magpie, or his jay in
short a petty menagerie of various kinds. The effect was
such that a visitor made his way across to the inner room,
or sanctum, as quickly as possible. That inner sanctum
250 KING'S COLLEGE
had a book case of cherished books ; a gridiron, and other
culinary accompaniments for shooting days when too late
for the Hall, under the Market-ministration of his Bed-
maker.
"The writer not unfrequently went out shooting with
him. One day as we were out two or three miles from
Cambridge on unpreserved ground, he said to me, ' We
must go a little to the right to such-and-such a church, as
I have promised to take a funeral there at 3 o'clock.' We
reached it in time, and stopped at the outer gate. ' Keep
the dog and my gun,' quoth he. He leaned the gun by
the gate ; tucked up his trousers into shorts ; went in ;
performed the funeral ; came forth ; took up his gun ;
patted doggie on the head, and we went on as before,
shooting our way home."
Mr. Tucker also describes excursions to balls at
Huntingdon and Bury, made in gig or tandem. Some
former Scholar had managed to possess himself of a
surreptitious key, which was always lent to the ball-
goers. But even this seems to have been almost
an unnecessary precaution; for Mr. Tucker says,
"We happily had no 'gates 1 ; or if late arrivals were
chronicled we never heard of it ; no notice was taken."
Perhaps a return to College at 4 or 5 A.M. would
have been too much even for the tolerant Dons of
those days.
Mr. Tucker has also something to say about wine
parties and whist clubs ; and altogether the contrast
between the actual life of his contemporaries and that
prescribed in the Statutes is a glaring one, even when
due allowance has been made for the inevitable change
of habits in the course of three centuries and more.
Nor is it surprising if the authorities thought it high
THE END OF OLD COURT 251
time to transplant the Undergraduates, and give them
the benefit of new surroundings. Accordingly architects
were invited by advertisement to furnish plans and
elevations for a new building ; and prizes of ^300, %OQ,
and WO were offered for a competition which was to
be anonymous. Only a week before the prizes were
awarded the College decided to give the preference to a
Gothic plan. On March 25, 1823, the first prize was
awarded to" Mr. William Wilkins, whose plan was then
submitted to a Committee of Architects, two of them
being Wyatt and Nash, and was altered in accordance
with their suggestions. It was a year more before the
contract with Stannard, a Norwich builder, was settled ;
the estimate was =73,000, but the whole cost eventually
amounted to =100,000. The stone used came from
Ketton in Rutlandshire.
At the same time the Provost was empowered, after
the building was erected, to make a contract for " Gothi-
cizing" Gibbs's Building according to Wilkins's plan,
and then for adding cloisters behind the screen. The
original dimensions of the Court had to be somewhat
curtailed, because the College failed to acquire Mr.
Cory's house, which stood on the site now covered by
Scott's Building. The College had done their best to
come to terms with Mr. Cory ; and the latter had
actually accepted an offer, which he afterwards repudi-
ated. Leave was, however, obtained to divert the course
of King's Lane, which formerly entered Trumpington
Street, to the north of Mr. Cory's house. It was
intended that at each end of the Screen there should be
a gateway : that on the south to admit carriages, and the
one on the north to be a dummy. This kind of mathe-
matical symmetry was characteristic of Mr. Wilkius's
252 KING'S COLLEGE
Gothic ; and there were to have been two oriel windows
in the Hall, in addition to the two galleries and two
lanterns. The new kitchen, and therefore probably the
new Hall, was used for the first time on February 27,
1828.
Though the College failed in their dealings with Mr.
Cory, they were more successful with the University, to
whom, after a good deal of bargaining, they sold the old
Court for ,12,000. This would not have gone far
towards paying their new bill ; and, as a matter of fact,
it was applied for the purchase of landed property;
but a large sum was by this time accummulated in the
Chest Fund, and something was added by the sale of
trees, walls, and the gateway on the south of the
College. In January 1828, when the new buildings
were finished, the old Provost's Lodge was also pulled
down, and the materials sold.
The Lodge had undergone so many alterations,
especially in 1786, that it must have lost much of its
original character. Mr. Tucker describes it as a
" largish, dark-red brick, tiled house ; many windows
broad ; unsightly, but not uncommon. It had nothing
noticeable about it; it was like many old houses
scattered over the country; mostly turned nowadays
into schools ; conveying on the whole a strong idea of
dulness. As one looked at it and fancied, the idea
would come of darkish passages, and wide wooden
carved staircases. Nor would the looker's idea be far
wrong. The rooms to which we were at any time
admitted were low, large, and panelled. If I remember
right, it was separated from the Lawn by a low garden
wall and hedge, which ran down the whole side towards
the Lane, enclosing, as it went, the little bits of yards
THEj END OF' OLD COURT 253
and gardens of the street cottages." Most of this must
already have been swept away to make room for the
Screen and Porter's Lodge.
The adoption of Wilkins's plan naturally led to the
completion of the easternmost window on the south side
of the Chapel, the lower half of which had been left a
blank wall, in order that the eastern wing of the projected
building might abut against it. In 1830 it was glazed
in accordance with Mr. Hedgeland's design, the old
glass being moved from the upper to the lower part of
the window. At nearly the same time Lord de Dun-
stanville gave glass to fill the oriel window in the
Hall.
The attention paid to material improvements had
perhaps diminished that which discipline demanded.
At any rate, for some years after the building was
finished, the younger members of the College seem to
have been even more disorderly than before. Early
one summer morning half a dozen scholars broke into
the old and now deserted Court, and lighted fires, to
feed which they used wood from the old Combination
Room. A little later, a Scholar and a young Fellow
were in disgrace for intruding into a Meeting House in
Green Street on a Sunday evening, and trying to pro-
voke laughter in the congregation. One of them made
matters worse by escaping from the Proctor without
giving his name. The next year a Scholar named Price
was actually deprived of his Scholarship, a very rare
occurrence ; but, besides knocking down and insulting
a tradesman who had called to get his bill paid, he had
been guilty of habitual misconduct. A man of older
standing, Lionel Buller, elected a Fellow in 1821, began
in 1832 to behave in so outrageous a manner as to make
254 KING'S COLLEGE
his sanity a matter of doubt. Ten years later, he was
in prison for debt, having borrowed ^300 (half of
it in wine and brandy) on the security of his Fellow-
ship ; finally he was accused of fraud and perjury in
1848. The case came before the Master of the Rolls,
who condemned Buller's conduct so severely that the
College had no hesitation in depriving him of his
Fellowship.
From these scenes it is a relief to turn to the closing
days of Simeon. In his early life he had proved the
truth of the proverb " Bene facere et male audire
regium est " ; but opposition had gradually died down.
He had long had a devoted band of Undergraduate
followers, larger (according to Bishop Charles Words-
worth) than that which followed Newman, and for a
longer time. In 1831 as many as 120 Freshmen were
introduced to him. It was more difficult to conciliate
official opinion ; yet even this had been done. In
1826 he received a visit from three Bishops, and he
observes :
" In former years I should as soon have expected a visit
from three crowned heads as from three persons wearing a
mitre ; not because there was any want of condescension
in them, but because my religious character affixed a stigma
to my name."
And Lord Macaulay told his sister that Simeon's
influence and authority extended to the most remote
corners of England, and that his real sway over the
Church was far greater than that of any Primate.
Yet within his own College the old prejudice never
quite disappeared. When Tucker was an Under-
graduate, Simeon used to dine in the Bursars 1 parlour
THE END OF OLD COURT 255
with Leycester and Hinde. Hinde and Simeon did
not speak to each other. Leycester was Moderator.
Mr. Tucker, who tells us this, adds :
" I never once saw Simeon in our Chapel. He was among
us not of us ; and during the six years I was at King's, he
never made a single convert or disciple."
He says, however, that Simeon's " manner was singularly
gentle ; and he invariably received the greatest respect
from us.""
The visits to Simeon's rooms, at the top of Gibbs's
Building, were almost looked upon as pilgrimages, and
the iron rail, fixed into the wall opposite the banisters
to help Simeon, which went by the name of the " Saint's
Rest," must have been useful to many other elderly
men on the way up or down these stairs. In these
rooms, after a short illness, Simeon died. He was
buried in the Ante Chapel on November 24, 1836.
Rowland Williams, who had just been admitted a
Scholar, tells us that :
"about 800 gownsmen, old and young, followed in pro-
cession, though the day was cold and wet. As we entered
Chapel, the opening Anthem had a beautiful effect ; our
Provost also read beautifully, and never perhaps were more
tears shed for a man by those in no way related to him."
The history has already reached a period within the
memory of men still living ; Mr. Tucker is a witness to
the state of things during the third decade of the
century, and some reminiscences of the College, 1833
to 1836, are furnished by Bishop Abraham, a man
" quern nemo non parum amat, etiam si plus amare non
potest."
256 KING'S COLLEGE
" We had," he writes, " two hours of Lectures every day,
one hour for Classics and one for Mathematics. Our Tutor
for both was the Rev. F. Isaacson, Fellow of St. John's, a
firstrate Tutor in Classics and quite good enough for us in
Algebra etc. As an accurate scholar he was, to my mind,
unrivalled. Probably Shilleto was more of a genius ; but
Provost Goodford's great reputation for reliable accuracy
was, I think, gained rather from Isaacson the College
Tutor than from Shilleto his coach. The Divinity Lecturer
was the Revd. Sir George Craufurd, a devout and refined
gentleman, much respected by us all. I need hardly say
that the great resource of all was cricket.* We were too
few and too poor for boating. But cricket kept us from
loafing in the summer ; and occasional rides on horseback,
or driving a trap, were our only resources in the way of
amusement in the winter.
" Considering the lack of any incentive for study and
distinction in the College or the University, it was fortunate
that men had brought from Eton to Cambridge independent
tastes and resources; and on looking back to my Under-
graduate and B.A. Terms, the thing that strikes me most
is the versatility of the men I knew there."
In illustration of this versatility, Bishop Abraham
mentions W. W. Harvey, the editor of Irenaeus ;
R. Barrett, a man of great learning and a skilful chess
player, in spite of his being nearly blind ; C. A. Wilkin-
son ; Robert Latham, a pioneer in philology and also a
physician ; John Hibbert,
* At this time most of the cricketers of Cambridge came from a
few great schools, Eton supplying a large proportion of them. Not
long before Bishop Abraham's time, King's and University was an
annual match; and in 1820 and 1821, the scores for which years
happen to be preserved, each side in turn won a close match by one
wicket.
THE END OF OLD COURT 257
" a philanthropist on a large scale, who used to open his
grounds to the poor, and occasionally entertained them by
hundreds, to the astonishment of the police ; for he main-
tained perfect order by means of his simple large-hearted-
ness and joyous welcome to all ; "
lastly, George Williams,
"who was, I cannot deny, the boy of least intellectual
mark at Eton, but who became, mainly by the encourage-
ment and example of the good Charles Simeon, a man of
very considerable literary eminence and personal influence
for good."
It is impossible to compare the Bishop's account with
that of Mr. Tucker without feeling that Wilkins's
Building, or some other cause, had done something to
change the tone of the College. Yet it will be seen
from the next chapter that the old leaven had not
entirely disappeared.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE CLOSE OF THE OLD REGIME
THE College does not seem to have indulged in any
extravagant outburst of loyalty at the accession of
Queen Victoria ; but, in order to keep Coronation Day
in June 1838, the College Tinman was ordered to
provide the necessary lamps for a Crown and for the
Queen's initials ; and 1.0 was voted towards a dinner
to be given to the poor. The scale on which these
rejoicings were held contrasts with the sum of <^?500
voted in 1864 for the reception of the newly-married
Prince and Princess of Wales. Greater liberality, how-
ever, was shown in helping Eton College with their new
buildings, which have done so much for the improve-
ment in the condition of the Collegers ; the sum of ^500
being voted on November 25, 1841, for that purpose.
In August 1843 there was an extraordinary hailstorm
in the Cambridge district, which did great damage to
the crops ; and in the following spring ^300 was
divided among the tenants who had suffered. Nor did
the horrors of the Irish famine pass unnoticed, but a
vote of WO was passed for the " remote parishes of
Ireland and Scotland. 1 '
During all these years the attention of the College
was much occupied with the development of their
property. In 1832-33 they purchased for ^12,000 the
THE CLOSE OF THE OLD REGIME 259
estate of Troy on the Colne in Hertfordshire ; and a few
years later they added to their Grantchester property.
The money for this last purchase came, in part, from
the gifts of Mr. Davidson, one of the most munificent of
our private benefactors ; and in part from a bequest from
Dr. Barnes, formerly Vice-Provost, whose appointment
to be Master of Peterhouse was a surprise both to himself
and to the members of his second College, but who never
forgot what he called ' the dear place of his education. 11
The Tithe Commutation Act of 1836 gave the
College and their agents plenty of work in settling the
amounts to be paid in future in the parishes in which
they were interested, either as owners or payers of
tithe. Railway legislation too was already in full
progress ; and it was no easy matter to decide whether
this novelty should be welcomed or opposed ; more
often than not, the College seems to have resisted the
invasion of their estates by the steam-engine. The
tendency to enclose waste or open land had by no
means ceased; and the College was ready enough to
promote the policy of converting down into arable land,
while the price of corn still remained high. Moreover,
they had experienced the difficulty of keeping a firm
hold on the land over which they had manorial rights.
In parts of the country, especially in Dorsetshire,
squatters had built themselves cottages and occupied
plots of ground without any recognition of the land-
lord's right. Such appropriations were generally
converted into legal tenures at the next manorial court
held in the district, and the regular College circuits no
doubt helped to prevent any permanent alienation of
property ; but to promote enclosures may have seemed
the best way to stop encroachments.
260 KING'S COLLEGE
At home a beginning had already been made to
provide a new and larger garden, which should replace
the one formerly enjoyed by the Fellows on the east
side of the Cam. The enclosure of St. Giles's parish
had given the College ground to the west of the road
which runs through the " Backs " ; and in October
1836 it was resolved that the nearest of these fields
should be
" planted, and a walk made through the plantation ; the
interior to be secured by an iron fence and enjoyed by the
Provost rent free : The Walk to be accessible to the Provost
and his family, and also to Fellows by keys not transfer-
able."
The Provost consented, on condition of three acres
being left as pasture. The Fellows thus gained the
privilege of walking round a shrubbery, and contem-
plating the four horses which drew the Provost's coach,
as they grazed within the iron fence. But this did not
satisfy them for long; and on March 20, 1851, Provost
Okes having "consented to commute the Close now
assigned to him for some other as soon as one becomes
vacant," the original field was to "be "laid out as a
pleasure ground for the Fellows of the College." The
field assigned to the Provost, as compensation for this
loss, now forms part of the College cricket ground.
Considerable skill was shown by the Bursar, Mr. Bump-
sted, in laying out the Fellows' garden ; and perhaps
the only fault to be found in it is its remoteness from
the College buildings, and the fact that it is practically
inaccessible after dark.
The Chapel also called for a good deal of expenditure.
The windows had often undergone some repair, but a
THE CLOSE OF THE OLD REGIME 261
more thorough attempt was now made to mend and
secure them, and Mr. Hedgeland was commissioned to
undertake the work, which went on at intervals for
about seven years. At last, in 1849, it was discovered
that Mr. Hedgeland was introducing new glass and
destroying the character of the windows, and his pro-
ceedings were stopped.
Ten years later the Organ had its turn; being
reconstructed by Hill at a cost of nearly ^1000.
About the same amount had been spent on it at the
beginning of the century, the organ builder chiefly
employed at that time being Avery. It was in 1859
that the angels were placed on the organ case. Smaller
figures of a similar kind had formerly stood there, but
had been removed to make way for pinnacles.
But the roof of the Chapel now called for attention ;
and a report of Sir G. G. Scott's in 1860 showed that
both timber and lead must be renewed. It took several
years to complete the necessary repairs, which included
the addition of tie-rods, and the cost was ^2715.
It was long since the College had given any trouble
to their Visitor ; but the intervention of Bishop Kaye
was called for, in 1838, by a case which had occurred at
the Eton election. The Founder's Statutes did not
limit the number of boys to be examined for Scholar-
ships at King's ; but since 1660 it had been the custom
to admit to examination only the thirteen seniors in
standing, and twelve of these had in each year been
placed on the Indentures. As every boy who reached
the age of eighteen without being in this list had to
leave Eton, it might easily happen that a boy who
entered College rather late would fail to have any
opportunity of standing for a Scholarship ; especially
262 KING'S COLLEGE
in days when the position of the boys during their
school career was seldom or never altered by the test of
examination. This was actually the case with William
Hardisty, who was excluded from the election trials in
July 1837 because he was not among the first thirteen
Collegers. The Visitor decided that Hardisty, though
already eighteen years of age, should be examined in
1838. He does not seem to have laid down any general
rule for the future ; but about this time the practice of
admitting to examination every boy who had reached his
seventeenth year must have begun. In the earlier years
of the century the examination had been a mere form.
No one was plucked, and there was no changing of
places. But in 1819 a rumour spread among the boys
that all this was to be altered, and two years later the
rumour was found to be true. The fact was that one
of the Posers, John Lucius Dampier, a barrister, had
determined to put an end to what he rightly thought
to be a scandal ; and he had the support of his colleague
John Tomkyns. The latter was a man of varied experi-
ence, for he had served in the Peninsular War, he was
afterwards a banister, and finally he held a College
Living. If, as we are assured on good authority, boys
had sometimes got to King's who never did a verse or a
theme of their own while at Eton, and who could not
construe ten lines of Virgil without a dictionary,
Dampier's reforms did not come too soon.
Some light is thrown on undergraduate life at King's
during the later years of Provost Thackeray by the
letters of two distinguished Kingsmen, Rowland
Williams and William Johnson. Williams was five
or six years senior to Johnson, being admitted Scholar
on November 11, 1836, just before Simeon's death.
THE CLOSE OF THE OLD REGIME 263
He was not wholly satisfied with the state of things
which he found there, and writes home :
"My greatest difficulty at King's will be to keep up
religious feelings. A certain party in the College is such
as to throw everything into extremes, and it is difficult to
avoid being either a fanatic or a profligate."
Evidently Simeon had failed to create a school in which
the more intellectual men could feel themselves at home ;
and seven years later Johnson had to go outside his own
College to find men " much more thoughtful than the
team of King's Scholars'" in which he "ran""; men
whose conversation was really useful and stimulating,
though he felt it to be perilous from the " untheological
and in plain truth irreligious opinions'" which were
prevalent among them.
In his picture of College life Rowland Williams has
a good deal to say about wine parties. At first he
determined to go to them, but not to stay beyond
6 P.M. (the hour of dinner being then 4.30 P.M.), except
when he gave a party himself, which would not be
more than three times in the Term. " A reading man, 1 '
he says, "is allowed to leave after the first hour."
However, he very soon found that it was not so easy to
leave early, and made up his mind to do without wine,
or at any rate not to frequent King's parties. He was
evidently a hard worker, but no recluse :
" I am learning Hebrew/' he writes to his father,
" according to your wish ; we have Mathematical Lectures
twice a week, four days in Classics. The Lectures and
Chapels cut up the time like mincemeat. Our examina-
tions cannot be much stricter than they have been for some
years, but we are now to have degree Examinations in addi-
264 KING'S COLLEGE
tion to others. I read every day till one or sometimes two
o'clock ; take my aspen stick of huge bulk, and begin
moving for upwards of an hour out of Cambridge as fast as
I can. I then move back. I dine at 4.30 P.M., read at 6,
get generally three hours of the rest of the evening.
" We have had four or five days' skating. There is such
a difficulty in varying the monotonous walking that any
novelty of a kind such as this is quite an event."
The next winter, when under examination in the Senate
House, he recognises a fellow skater :
" I found with a mixture of horror and amusement that
three days before I had been playing at hockey on the ice
with the Vice Chancellor ! ! to say nothing of talking to
him just as if he had been an Eton fellow."
By degrees Williams'^ life became less monotonous,
for his friend Essington says :
"We played fives when we were undergraduates, and
went to the Union together, where Rowland was a leading
speaker on the Conservative side ; and as Fellows we used
(of course quite by chance) to fall in with Mr. Allix's
harriers in the fen country by Little Wilbraham, or the
Cambridgeshire at Madingley or Babraham. On these
occasions he soon left us behind, and every one except the
rider regarded with apprehension the heels of the brown
thorough-bred, which Rowland Williams was fond of
praising, though he seemed to us to be a stubborn and
dangerous stallion."
The year 1838 saw the beginning of King's boating,
and Williams shared the office of steerer with John
Hawtrey. The Provost did not approve of it, and
threatened impositions whenever the boat interfered
with attendance at Chapel. But a more serious diffi-
THE CLOSE OF THE OLD REGIME 265
culty must have arisen, when, in February 1844, the
number of Scholars actually sank to four, two having
been elected in 1841 and two in 1842, but none since
that year. However, in April 1845, a boat was manned
after a fashion, and Johnson, who himself rowed, de-
scribes its success :
" We have achieved a complete conquest over the unkind
prejudices of our elders in the College, who at first threw
some cold and not very clean water on the project of the
revival of the boat club. . . . We had to start last but one,
because we had so recently entered. ... In about 200
yards one might infer from the noises that we were close
upon the quarters of the Emmanuel boat. Going round a
corner, with not light enough to steer by, we found our
oars digging into the sedge, and the boat going one-sided ;
one or two lookers-on holloaing to our steerer (a very young
and marvellously coolheaded being) to steer out. Luckily
he disobeyed, and persisted in making for their inside ; so
in a few strokes more we were bumping them most deci-
sively, and stopped and hoisted our flag, having not had
enough work to give us a breathing the Emmanuel eight
looking sulky at being caught so early by a six-oar."
Rowland Williams gained the Battie Scholarship in
1838, and writes home that :
" my dignity is manifoldly increased by my becoming for
seven years the owner of an estate, or landed property, or
in other words of a little farm with a tenant too ! ! ! who
signs himself ' your umbal servant J. J.' "
He was ordained in October 1842, and it is satisfac-
tory to learn that :
" there were six Kingsmen, all of whom satisfied the Bishop
[of Lincoln] in their first day's examination, so as to make
266 KING'S COLLEGE
it unnecessary to keep us longer. He told us that no set
of men came to him so well prepared ; and his Chaplain,
Mr. Jeremie, said they now did as well as they once did
badly."
Williams had already begun work as Classical Tutor at
King's, and two years later was pointed out to a Fresh-
man as the only great Aristotelian lecturer in Cambridge.
He held this post till 1850, and would probably have
continued to reside if he had succeeded in gaining the
Public Oratorship in 1848, when Bateson was elected.
As it was, he consoled himself with knowing that, leav-
ing King's and St. John's out of account, he had received
most votes ; and he accepted the posts of Vice-Principal
and Hebrew Professor at Lampeter College. It is un-
necessary to pursue his later career, which was full of
theological controversy, culminating in a prosecution
before the Court of Arches and an appeal to the Privy
Council in 1863 and 1864. Even before this last crisis
his published writings had brought him into collision
with more than one Bishop. But there was another
side to his life. From 1859 till his death in 1870 he
was Vicar of Broadchalke, a Wiltshire country parish,
which had long suffered from a non-resident Vicar.
Williams made himself the friend as well as the pastor
of his parishioners, and his devotion was repaid by their
gratitude and affection. Possibly his reputation for
combativeness may have increased their respect for him.
On one occasion when the Provost and Bursar, on a
College circuit, were on the road between Salisbury and
Broadchalke, their driver pointed to the distant figure
of the Vicar riding over the downs, and said : " That's
him as tackled the Bishop." Williams was a man not
quite happy unless he was "tackling" somebody or
THE CLOSE OF THE OLD REGIME 267
something. But his wars were all waged on what to the
Wiltshire peasants was foreign ground. Within his
own parish there was peace.
William Johnson was the first Kingsman to gain the
Chancellor's prize for an English poem ; he was rather
shocked at beating Maine, but observes that, when the
exercise was forgotten, it would be pleasant to have his
name in a list which contained those of Macaulay,
Praed, and Tennyson ; and he lived to publish a small
volume of poetry, which fully justified the verdict of the
University Examiners. In 1844 he became Craven
Scholar.
" I really believe/' he writes, " that no one is dis-
appointed, i.e., no one but Thring has not some other
chance of high distinction, and he was told by one who
could tell him only to expect the second place. I have by
one small and one large supper, at great but unavoidable
expense, got over that part of the consequences of my
election, which my acquaintance here expect as their
due."
He valued his own success chiefly because it set him
free for wider reading ; and when invited by the Head-
master of Eton, in 1845, to take a Mastership, he says :
(t If Hawtrey would but let me alone a little while
longer, I would come to his great verse-mill almost a
learned man, instead of a smatterer. But see if I don't
make the smaller fry at Eton write me holiday essays about
St. Louis or Simon de Montfort or Charlemagne."
His first experience of the noise of 200 boys and four
Masters in the Upper School at Eton was a little dis-
couraging.
268 KING'S COLLEGE
"I found myself bellowing to forty-five book-bearing
bipeds, of whom I found one to be an intelligent being and
expect to discover more."
But those who know Eton know that his force and
originality soon made him the foremost of Eton Tutors.
To be a pupil of Johnson was, in itself, almost a
testimonial.
The Headmaster of whom Johnson speaks was one
of a long line of Kingsmen, who in succession held
that office. Edward Barnard had formed the one
exception in the eighteenth century ; and since 1802 the
courtly Goodall, the strenuous Keate, the accomplished
Hawtrey had all been Fellows of King's ; and they were
to be followed by Goodford, most indefatigable and, in
spite of appearances, most wide awake of Headmasters,
and by Balston, to know whom produced the same
beneficial effect on manners which, according to the
well-worn couplet, is gained by a thorough training in
"ingenuae artes." And, of these, Hawtrey had the
longest connection with King's, for he held a College
Living till after he became Provost of Eton. Even as
an Undergraduate he had shown his genuine love of
books. In a letter which he wrote when Provost of
Eton, in 1857, he recalls an incident of the year 1807 :
" In the first week of my Scholarship at King's, having
then a monomania for Oriental Philology,, I explored the
old King's Library in that portion of it, which contained
the Hebrew Bibles. I found it stated in the list of Books,
which used then to be pasted on each case (a very good
custom), that there was in that case a copy of the Com-
plutensian Polyglot, a book which I had never seen. I
looked in vain for it, and supposed that some unknown
Hebraist among the Seniors was consulting it. 1 was,
THE CLOSE OF THE OLD REGIME 269
until my own rooms were fit to receive me, a guest of the
Provost (Sumner), and on the same evening I told him of
my search and of its result."
It turned out, however, that it must have been stolen ;
and that very evening Hawtrey had resolved, if ever he
could do so, to fill up the place with another copy.
And now, fifty years later, he tells Provost Okes that
his intention was fulfilled. He had become possessed of
a copy ; only he wished to keep the six volumes till his
death. He seems, in 1857, to have dreaded the results
of the Commission ; for he inscribed in the first volume
a note that it was
" p,vr)fjt,6o-vvov amic&bilis concordiae inter regalia haec Col-
legia nondum dissolutae et, ut ex animo sperat, nullis
factiosorum hominum simultatibus dissolvendae."
But perhaps he had in his mind a snub which he had
himself received from the College in 1827. He had been
appointed College Preacher for March 25 of that year ;
and he had sent an excuse, apparently at the last
moment, pleading, no doubt, his engagements as an Eton
Master. Thereupon the College resolved :
" That Mr. Gee be directed to write to Mr. Hawtrey a
Letter expressive of the dissatisfaction of the College on
account of his non attendance to preach in the Chapel and
inform him that his excuse is deemed inadmissible ; inas-
much as his absence from College is altogether an indul-
gence and the duties which he considers to be imposed on
him by any other engagement cannot be allowed to inter-
fere with the paramount duty which he owes to his own
College. That Mr. Hawtrey pay as a fine <6 6s., and that
he be appointed Preacher on the 25th March, 1828."
270 KING'S COLLEGE
In the sequel, however, he was excused from preach-
ing ; and he seems to have made his peace by a present
of maps to the College Library.
Edward Thring, of whom Johnson speaks as a disap-
pointed candidate for the Craven Scholarship, had to
content himself with the Person Prize. But, if his
undergraduate career was not brilliant, he has the rare
distinction of being the maker of a great public school.
His life at Uppingham from 1853 to 1887 has lately
been described by Mr. G. R. Parkin, and we are now
better able to measure the greatness of his work there ;
the difficulties with which he had to contend in an
obstructive body of Trustees, and in the debt which he
had contracted in order to carry out his theories. For
he was determined to prove that it is possible, even in
an English public school, to do full justice to each
individual boy, and to train the character and the
intellect, such as -it is, even of the most stupid and
backward.
Tin-ing's first appearance, as Fellow, at a College
meeting was on May 29, 1846, when the Society had
been alarmed by a strange rumour. The Visitor had
written to say that the new Bishop of Oxford, Samuel
Wilberforce, desired to obtain a clause in an Act of
Parliament, which would transfer the Visitorship of
King's College from Lincoln to Oxford. This roused
the Kingsmen to declare that they had sworn obedience
to the Bishop of Lincoln, and could not break their
oath ; moreover, that it was highly objectionable that a
Bishop of Oxford should exercise jurisdiction over any
College in Cambridge. Bishop Wilberforce soon wrote
to assure them that he had never " entertained the
faintest wish to occupy the post of Visitor in King's
THE CLOSE OF THE OLD REGIME 271
College."" His eloquent addresses had already gained
him a position of influence at Eton; and he may
have hoped that, as he did the work of a Bishop there,
so he might enjoy the honour of being Visitor of the
great school which now lay within his own diocese. It
was not so likely that he would be anxious to act as
umpire in the quarrels of a distant College belonging to
the rival University.
Yet seven years later, on the death of Bishop Kaye,
Bishop Wilberforce again raised the same question ;
and in a letter addressed to the Provost of Eton argued
that, Eton being within his own diocese, he was now
actual and legal Visitor of that College. About King's
College he spoke with less confidence ; but he was of
opinion that this College also had been transferred,
together with Eton, from the diocese of Lincoln to
that of Oxford, and was therefore now under his care.
Sir John Patteson, who was consulted, suggested a
method of settling the question as far as Eton was con-
cerned. As to King's College, he held that nothing
short of an Act of Parliament could transfer the Visitor-
ship of that College from Lincoln to Oxford. Bishop
Wilberforce acquiesced in this view ; and the Statutes
of 1882 have once more declared the Bishop of Lincoln
to be Visitor of King's College.
CHAPTER XIX
REFORM
THE establishment of the Classical Tripos in 1824 had
made it clear to some members of the Society that
their exemption from University examinations was a
restriction rather than a privilege. An anonymous
pamphlet, which bears no date, but which is shown by
internal evidence to have been written by a Kingsman,
or possibly by a knot of Kingsmen, about 1837, argues
that this exemption was contrary to the Founder's
intention ; and that the growth of the University,
together with the encouragement given to classical
studies by the establishment of a Tripos, had increased
the competition for the University Scholarships, thereby
diminishing the probability that Kingsmen would come
to the front. In point of fact, since 1827 no Kingsman
had gained a University Scholarship. The force of this
last argument was somewhat weakened by the success
of Rowland Williams and Edward Balston in 1838 and
1839; and nothing came of a protest which, though
powerful, was premature. Nearly ten years later, in
1846 and 1848, Edward Thring circulated two pam-
phlets on the same subject. These are written in a
lighter vein than that of the anonymous author, but
the general line of argument is the same. Thring
points to the example set by the members of New
REFORM 273
College, who had already surrendered their correspond-
ing privilege at Oxford; and, like the earlier writer,
he is at pains to remove an objection which evidently
weighed with the College authorities, viz., that the
mathematical test required by the University would
force Kingsmen to devote their time to a subject which
was to them distasteful and almost degrading.
But the Provost had set his face against the move-
ment ; and it was not till his death in the autumn of
1850 that anything could be done. The appointment
of Richard Okes, Lower Master of Eton, to the Provost-
ship in November of that year, gave the opportunity,
which had been secured to Eton ten years earlier, when
Francis Hodgson became Provost. Reform was now
possible ; and when Okes, accompanied by Harry Dupuis,
who had been supported by a minority of the Fellows
in the recent election to the Provostship, went to
London to be instituted by the Visitor, Bishop Kaye
took the opportunity to impress on the new Provost
the duty of facing this question. Ten years before, so
he said, he had received a petition from Fellows of the
College asking him to intervene. The petition was
informal, and he could do nothing ; but he had looked
into the subject and satisfied himself that the practice
of the College had no real warrant in the Statutes.
The advice fell on willing ears. Even as a boy Okes
had heard something of the same kind. For, just after
he had been elected an Eton Scholar, he met an old
Fellow of Trinity in the streets of Cambridge, a friend
of his own father's, who said to him :
" Now you have begun your career; you'll become a Fellow
of King's in time and, I hope, Provost. If you do, mind that
you get rid of the exemption from Degree examinations."
274 KING'S COLLEGE
A meeting of Seniors and Officers on March 25, 1851,
agreed to surrender the old privilege and to lay the
question before the whole body of Fellows on the
following first of May. In the interval the Provost
circulated a memorandum, in which he pointed out
that the privilege rested on no solid basis, and that the
University might at any time refuse the B.A. degree to
a Kingsman ; in which case the Visitor would certainly
reject any appeal made to him. He did not fail to add
that the true interests of education in the College called
for this change.
On May 1 it was unanimously agreed
" that the present practice of claiming for the undergradu-
ates of this College the degree of B.A. in the Senate
House without passing the Examinations required by the
University be abandoned."
Some of the 34 Fellows present must have stared at
one another in surprise that no one was found to defend
the old monopoly, and that the impossible was at last
accomplished with such ease. The document of
surrender was sealed and sent to the Vice-Chancellor,
Dr. Corrie, Master of Jesus. He does not seem to have
acted in a hurry, for it was not till November 26 that a
Syndicate was appointed, whose report was confirmed by
the Senate on February 18, 1852. By this final settle-
ment every one admitted to a King's Scholarship after
May 1, 1851, was obliged to pass a Degree Examina-
tion. For Scholars of older standing the Examination
was optional.
This auspicious opening of the new Provostship was
somewhat overclouded by a controversy in the autumn
of 1854, when at the annual election of officers the
Provost used his veto to prevent the election of a Vice-
REFORM 275
Provost and Bursar supported by a small majority of
the Fellows. The disappointed party did not accept
their defeat without sending a batch of petitions and
appeals to the Visitor. There was nothing against the
character of these two candidates; but the physical
infirmities of one were such as made the Provost's
objection reasonable ; and in the case of the other, who
had been chosen as Bursar, the Provost doubted his
financial capacity, and considered the fact that he had
long been a non-resident to be a disqualification. The
appeal which seems to have given the Visitor most
trouble was one sent by a B.A. Fellow," Charles
Caldecott James, now Rector of Wortham, who was the
first Kingsman to take advantage of the recent settle-
ment, and had gained a high place in the Classical
Tripos of 1853. The point which he urged was that
the election of Bursars was invalid, because one of the
Deans who happened not to be a Senior Fellow had not
been summoned to take part in the election. It
was difficult to deny that the Statutes conferred this
right on the Deans ; but long custom had confined it,
in the first instance, to the actual Seniors ; the proba-
bility being that the Founder had never contemplated
the election of a Junior to the office of Dean. The
Visitor admitted the difficulty, but declined to interfere,
on the ground that a Bill was already before Parliament
which would enable the Colleges to amend their own
Statutes.
The presence of the Dean at the meeting of Seniors
would have made no practical difference on this occasion ;
and the Provost had only exercised what was his
undoubted prerogative. Yet the dissatisfaction which
naturally follows the use of a veto, together with the
276 KING'S COLLEGE
detection of a flaw in the Statutes, which made it
difficult to interpret them consistently, probably helped
to prepare the minds of the Fellows for a second revolu-
tion, which was soon to follow.
Meanwhile the new stimulus to industry was produc-
ing a silent and gradual change in the habits of the
College ; but it must be remembered that, even in the
case of those who came under the new rule, the election
to a Fellowship preceded the Tripos Examination, and
a high place in the Tripos list was therefore of less
importance to a Kingsman than to members of other
Colleges. William Green, now Rector of Hepworth,
was the first Scholar obliged to pass a Degree Examina-
tion, and he set a good example by being bracketed
second Classic in 1855. Of course, when he began
residence, he found among his older contemporaries
some who did not imitate Charles James in volunteering
for a Tripos ; and he tells us that, though the College
Lectures were good, yet
te a room filled with undergraduates of three different years,
who had no University Examination to work up to, and
though intelligent were of very various tastes, was hard to
deal with. Attendance was pretty strictly enforced : we
had two Lectures on every day but one, and one on that
day. But for attention that was a different matter.
Mathematics in King's before 1851, one might describe as
an Unknown quantity, small, that might be neglected.
Hardly any of us had received any mathematical teaching
at Eton. No Lecturer could have done much with such
a class. Our Lecturer had before him a set of youths
knowing next to nothing of the subject, and not caring to
learn anything."
Mr. Green describes the social life of his days as that
REFORM 277
of a family rather than a College, without much inter-
course with men of other Colleges.
" As a rule we worked, played, dined and wined together,
with little admixture of non-Etonian. Pleasantly and
sociably; and probably the absence of stimulus to work
made some of us more convivial than was good for our own
persons or our fathers' purses. But King's parties were
very seldom large, uproarious, or rowdy. The Junior
Combination was an established institution; it met after
Hall (which was at 5 P.M.) every evening, if there was a
quorum of three ; turn by turn each Scholar was host.
Now and then a Scholar entertained friends in his room at
a ' wine/ More evenings than not, a Scholar went either
to Junior Combination or to a friend's wine. No doubt
more wine was drunk than need have been ; some nonsense
was talked, but some sense likewise. To much I look back
as not only pleasant, but far from unprofitable. Symposia
were at times even Platonic and literary. ... I sometimes
think there is among undergraduates more trifling and
childishness, less manliness than forty years since. Students
are over-guided, and so fail to get the self-reliance won by
those who had to work out their own success."
Mr. Green has also a good word to say for the Dons
of his time.
"As Fellow during 1855-1857 I was thrown more with
my seniors, with some who were considerably older. I
met them in the Combination Room continually. No
doubt Eton Masterships drained away some of our best
men ; and others of energy sought fields of work elsewhere,
in the Church, Law, Literature. But with regard to those
who remained in College, I think harsh judgments have
been formed. There were among them men of learning,
taste, and culture; there were men who helped and
278 KING'S COLLEGE
encouraged the younger generation ; there were men who
conscientiously and diligently managed the College estates
and business. Even some, whom we youngsters in our
conceit put down as old fogies, had done some useful work
in times past. The family life, if narrowing, was pleasant.
Enlargement and cosmopolitanism are not attained without
some sacrifices. Loosening of bonds there must be, and
some liked the bonds and close union."
The Provost, like his predecessor Thackeray, had the
misfortune to lose his wife not many years after his
election. Notwithstanding this grievous loss he con-
tinued to shew towards his own Scholars a hospitality
which in those days was not expected of a College
Head. And these meetings at the Lodge must be
reckoned among the humanising influences which helped
to train more than one generation of Kingsmen.
In July 1856 an Act of Parliament was passed, and
Commissioners were appointed, for promoting reforms
in the University and Colleges of Cambridge. The
Commissioners began by laying down certain principles
of reform, on some of which, as the sequel shewed, they
were not prepared to insist. The next four or five years
were occupied by the efforts of the Colleges to reform
themselves, and the new Statutes for King's College did
not finally become law till the spring of 1861. Great
pains were taken to ascertain the views of each indi-
vidual Fellow, and by repeated discussions to arrive at
the matured judgment of the majority. There were
two important subjects in which a radical change was
made. The Provost had hitherto possessed the sole
power of initiating legislation, and also an absolute veto.
He now lost both initiative and veto ; the latter not
without a struggle, for the Committee who made
REFORM 279
the first draft of the new Statutes had desired to
preserve it. The Seniors too were deprived of their old
monopoly of government; but they retained a larger
dividend and the right to dine at a separate table.
These privileges, however, were not continued to persons
admitted to the College under the new Statutes. All
legislative power passed into the hands of the M.A.
Fellows, including, of course, those who had taken a
higher degree; and the B.A. Fellows lost even the small
share of government which they had enjoyed under the
old Statutes.
Still more striking, at least to the outer world, was
the change in the constitution of the Society itself.
Instead of a body of seventy Etonians, in which the pro-
portion of Fellows to Scholars fluctuated as the number
of deaths, marriages, and vacancies in Livings varied,
there was to be a fixed number of forty-six Fellows and
forty-eight Scholars. All obligation to take Holy
Orders was removed, but the Fellows of the future were
not to enjoy the emoluments of a Senior Fellowship.
Of the Scholarships twenty-four were reserved for Eton,
and the rest thrown open. Care was taken that both
in emoluments and in the length of tenure the Eton
Scholarships should be of such a value as to be attrac-
tive to the best scholars at Eton, although the certainty
of succession to a Fellowship had disappeared. It was
at first intended that the College might, if they
pleased, elect any Members of the University to Fellow-
ships. But Eton College protested strongly against
this provision, as inflicting an unnecessary injury on
Eton boys. They also objected on the same grounds
to any diminution in the number of Fellowships ; but
on this point their protest was unsuccessful ; and, indeed,
280 KING'S COLLEGE
the finances of the College were somewhat strained to
furnish as many as forty-six Fellowships, when provision
had been made for the increase in the value and number
of the Scholarships.
The alterations in the government and constitution of
the Society proposed by the College were acceptable to
the Commissioners, who complimented the members of
King's on their liberality ; but in two or three respects
the College were not to be won over by compliments to
the Commissioners' views. They would not hear of
terminable Fellowships, and all that they could consent
to do in favour of matrimony was to allow a married
Fellow a year of grace : a privilege which had hitherto
been confined to Fellows taking a College Living, in
whose case it was more appropriate, since after marriage
there is no " locus pcenitentiae."
Such was the settlement, not destined to last very
long, but of great importance in the history of the
College. It was inevitable that questions should arise
about vested interests ; and in the first place it had to
be settled what rights should be secured to existing
Scholars and to Eton boys already on the Indentures
for King's. An appeal to the Visitor resulted in his
ordering that all vacancies in the Fellowships occurring
before the July election of 1861 should be treated as
actual vacancies in the old body of seventy and be filled
by the admission of Collegers from Eton. To one boy
this made the difference of his becoming a Scholar of
King's, instead of going to Oxford, where he had already
matriculated ; and his services to the College in after
years have certainly repaid any debt which he owed for
this benefit. In the case of another boy, it produced
the curious result that he was twice admitted to his
REFORM 281
King^s Scholarship, first under the new system in
October 1861, and then, after the Visitor^ award, under
the old system in February 1862.
The Statutes, as originally drafted, had made no
special provision for those who held Scholarships at the
time when the Statutes became law. The Scholars
presented a petition to the Privy Council, and an
amended Statute secured to them and also to the two
Scholars mentioned above the old privilege of succeeding
to a Fellowship after three years of probation. Every-
thing, in fact, was eventually arranged so as to prevent
the period of transition from bearing hardly on in-
dividuals.
CHAPTER XX
" A little flock we were in Henry's hall
* * * * *
Hardly the circle widened, till one day
The guarded gate swung open wide to all."
BEFORE the College could fairly start on its new
career, it was necessary to reduce the number of Fellow-
ships to forty-six, and to fill up the whole number
of twenty-four Eton Scholarships. It was easily arranged
that every alternate vacancy in the Fellowships should
be allowed to lapse ; but the question of the number of
Eton Scholarships to be offered in each year furnished
not unfrequently a battlefield to the two parties in the
College. There were those who were anxious, possibly
over-anxious, to hasten the time when Open Scholarships
could be offered; and others who were constantly
haunted by fears lest their dividends should be reduced
by a forward policy. The controversy is of too recent
a date to be told in detail ; but it may be said generally
that the College owes much to the patrotism of its non-
resident Fellows, who, sometimes at great inconvenience,
attended the meetings at which critical questions were
to be settled. Among these none were more prominent
than William Johnson, whose spirited counsels and
fearlessness of speech were often invaluable ; while, of
the residents, Henry Bradshaw, who became University
Librarian in 1867, possessing as he did in great measure
NEW [KING'S 283
the confidence of both parties, was able to maintain
views which would have been most unpalatable if they
had been advanced by some hot-headed junior.
The life of Henry Bradshaw has been well and fully
told by a former Tutor of King's, G. W. Prothero, who
was afterwards Professor of History at Edinburgh. In
his own department of knowledge Bradshaw was
perhaps the foremost man of his day ; and, in addition
to this, he did more than any other resident to influence
the character and form the habits of many generations
of young Kingsmen. Though his scholarship did not
secure him a high degree, yet his originality and
devotion to letters soon raised him far higher than any
Tripos could have done; and in particular his know-
ledge of the first half-century of printing, and of early
printed books, was probably unrivalled. But this was
not all. If any one wished to know the age or history
of a MS., he was the person to consult, and he was
seldom consulted in vain. The binding of a book or its
title-page seemed to tell him more than the contents of
it did to an ordinary reader. He was tolerant of every-
thing except affectation ; and if it was a characteristic
of the Kingsmen of his day to covet wisdom more than
the reputation of being wise, and to be more afraid of
becoming prigs than of remaining Philistines, this was
in no small degree due to Bradshaw's influence. In
spite of his shyness and indifference to the out-door
pursuits of Undergraduates, there was a charm in him
which to most young men was irresistible. Nor was it
by any means only the most studious or the most
virtuous who were attracted within that circle, where
you might talk confidentially to your host, or read
silently at the same table ; a circle, which was some-
284 KING'S COLLEGE
times conversational, sometimes musical, but always
homelike. Rather brusque in his manners and occasion-
ally downright and even personal in his remarks, he had
a fund of unselfish sympathy which seemed inexhaustible.
And this unselfishness was as characteristic of his official
as of his private life. Other men wrote books; he
supplied them with the materials. The College happily
possesses a portrait of him by H. Herkomer, R. A., who,
while engaged on another work at Cambridge, happened
to be Bradshaw^s guest. He could not fail to appreciate
his host, and for his own satisfaction made a sketch of
what was certainly a noble head. In after days he gave
it to the College, where it now hangs in the Hall. It
was right that the portrait of such a man should have
been a labour of love, and that it should be a free gift
from one of Bradshaw's many friends.
It was not till 1873 that an Open Scholarship was
offered; and in the same year a non-Etonian was for
the first time elected to a Fellowship. The liberality
of William Johnson had enabled the College to elect
two Exhibitioners in 1865. Even this step had met
with some opposition ; and it was quite an epoch in the
College history when Mr. Witt, now a Q.C., carried a
resolution to the effect :
" That Mr. Johnson's offer be accepted with the thanks
of the College ; that the first Examination be held at
Easter 1865, and that Pensioners be admitted in October
1865."
The decision to admit Pensioners entailed the necessity
of fixing a standard ; and care was taken that only
candidates for Honours should enter the College. As
yet there was no Tutor ; and so unused had the Society
NEW KING'S 285
become to such an officer that some of the Fellows
wished the duties of a Tutor to be performed by one of
the Deans. But on November 28, 1865, it was decided
that a Tutor should be appointed. The appointment
rested with a small Board, called the Educational
Council, and here the consent of the Provost was still
necessary. William Ralph Churton became the first
Tutor under the new system ; and though he held the
office only two years, yet much of the work inseparable
from a new start fell on his shoulders. The number of
Lecturers, the amount of fees, the Examinations to be
passed, were among the subjects with which he had to
deal; and it required all his patience and all his
unselfishness to disarm opposition, and to secure a fair
field for the new venture. Progress was very slow.
Perhaps the public could not believe that King's was
really open, especially as no Scholarships were offered ;
perhaps there was some dread of Eton exclusiveness, or
some fear of an examination which professed to aim at a
high standard.
Before 1873 the largest number of Freshmen in any
one year was nine. In 1876 the number rose to twenty,
and in 1879 it reached thirty. Ten years later, in
1889, there were about ninety Undergraduates, exclusive
of Questionists. The largest entries hitherto have been
in the years 1894 and 1897, when forty-five and forty-
eight men were admitted to the College.
The prospect of Pensioners also awoke the desire for
additional buildings, and the first practical measure
adopted was the purchase of Mr. Cory's house from his
executors. This house stood between King's Lane and
the south-east corner of Wilkins's Building, and was
bought in November 1869 for ^4000. The next year
286 KING'S COLLEGE
a loan of ^6000 was sanctioned, and on May 30, 1871,
a design submitted by Sir G. G. Scott, for a range of
building fronting Trumpington Street and abutting on
Wilkins's Building, was approved. Part of the money
used for this addition came from the residue of a legacy
bequeathed by a Senior Fellow, Walter Chetwynd, for a
similar purpose. The College gained twelve sets of
rooms for Undergraduates ; the town lost a picturesque
bailing by the demolition of Mr. Cory's house, but
the street was improved by the addition of space and
light. Scott's Building, as seen from Bene't Street,
presents rather an imposing appearance, besides pos-
sessing the rare merit of having two niches which are
not empty.
Five years later some small houses in King's Lane
were converted into College rooms ; and about the same
time a more ambitious scheme began to occupy the
attention of the College. A proposal for buying the
Bull Hotel had been mooted in 1870 ; in 1876 it was
seriously prosecuted. At the same time a rival plan of
extension, by substituting a range of building for
Wilkins's Screen and completing the east side of the
Court, was pushed forward ; and in February 1877 it
was resolved to invite three architects to send in designs
for a building the cost of which should not exceed
,35,000. Designs were accordingly furnished by Sir
G. G. Scott, Mr. Street, and Mr. Burges; they still
remain castles in the air, for neither of the two plans
contemplated by the College was destined to be accom-
plished. The negotiations for the purchase of the Bull
were stopped by the veto of the Copyhold Commis-
sioners ; and when it came to the critical point, the
majority which had hitherto supported the plan for
From a photograph by] [J. Palmer Clarke, Cambridge
SCOTT'S BUILDING (FROM BENET STREET)
NEW KING'S 287
building on the Screen site disappeared. This was in
June 1878. One more effort was possible. The Uni-
versities Act of 1877 encouraged the union of Colleges;
and in the winter of 1879 King's College made overtures
to their neighbour St. Catherine. This was almost a
counsel of despair ; and though the conferences held by
representatives of both Colleges seemed at one time to
promise a favourable result, yet eventually the smaller
Foundation shrank from a union which looked too much
like an absorption.
The College finances were by this time in a less
flourishing condition ; however, in the autumn of 1883,
Mr. Fawcett was commissioned to build a Lecture
Room and a few sets of chambers opposite Scott's
Building, and on the west side of the Chetwynd Court.
It is remarkable how long the College had managed to
exist without Lecture Rooms. In early days the
Chapel and Hall had served the purpose ; and even as
late as the nineteenth century Fellows had lectured in
their own rooms. It can hardly be said that Wilkins
had provided a Lecture Room, though he built a room,
long, narrow, and dark, in which lectures were in fact
delivered. But it was not meant for this purpose, and
was called by Wilkins a "Muniment Room." From
time to time one or more sets of rooms were either
fitted up temporarily, or permanently converted into
Lecture Rooms ; some people taught in Hall, and some
in the College Library. At last in the Chetwynd Court
a room was actually built for the purpose ; and on the
evening of October 13, 1885, Dr. Westcott, one of the
great and good men whom the College had fortunately
been able to secure as Professorial Fellows, delivered an
inaugural Lecture on Provost Whichcote. Since that
288 KING'S COLLEGE
jt
time one more Lecture Room has been added by the
appropriation of the back drawing-room of the Provost's
Lodge, which had in Dr. Thackeray's days been used by
the College as its Audit Room ; and about the same
time, in 1889 and the following years, an important
extension of the College was accomplished, when two
wings of a three-sided Court designed by Mr. Bodley,
and built of Lincolnshire stone, were erected on what
had been the kitchen garden of the Lodge. The
College thereby acquired forty-six sets of rooms at a
cost of nearly ^30,000. The result is so attractive
both to those who occupy the building and to those
who view it from the outside, that it is doubtful
whether a future generation will have the courage to
add a third wing, and run the risk of spoiling the two
which already exist.
On April 22, 1879, there was a great gathering of
old Kingsmen to celebrate the completion of two works
of art within the College. Ten years earlier, F. E. Stacey,
a former Fellow, had offered to fill the west window of
the Chapel with stained glass. The offer was accepted,
but the first design brought before the College was not
approved, so that Messrs. Clayton and Bell could not
begin their work before 1873. The opportunity was a
grand one ; and both Mr. Stacey and the College felt
the importance of giving the artists time to exert
themselves to the utmost.
Our benefactor, Mr. Davidson, among his many
donations to the College, had in 1826 given 700 for a
" statue of the Founder and a handsome fountain." By
the end of 1872 this sum had grown to 3360, an
amount considered sufficient for the purpose ; and in
the following November it was resolved to have a
NEW KING'S 289
" bronze figure upon a base out of which a fountain or
conduit should flow," to be placed in the centre of the
East Lawn. Some members of the College wished
Mr. Foley to be the sculptor, but the majority preferred
Mr. Armstead. A letter from him to the Bursar,
May 10, 1877, describes the progress of his work. He
had made alterations in the figure of the Founder, who
was now represented as " gently offering the charter " ;
and, upon a suggestion of Provost Okes, he had changed
a pavement, which was ill suited for the reception of
water, into an outer basin. Two reliefs of an Eton
Colleger and a Fellow of King's had disappeared ; and
the two large figures of Philosophy and Religion were
already on view at the Royal Academy. Unfortunately
Portland stone was used, instead of granite, for the
basin ; and the action of frost and water has been fatal
to this part of the work, as well as to the base of the
main structure.
For the festival service in Chapel on this occasion the
Choir was reinforced by a few men's voices ; but no such
aid was necessary for the boys, who were now much
more efficient than had been the case with choristers of
former years. As long ago as June 11, 1862, attention
had been called to the unsatisfactory state of the Musical
Service, and the Precentor and Organist had been desired
to exert themselves for its improvement ; but one great
difficulty lay in the fact that the Lay Clerks did double
duty, singing both at Trinity and at King's. Mr.
Brocklebank, who moved in the matter, had always
taken a keen interest both in the history of the Chapel
and in the conduct of the Services. But his time was
engrossed with Bursarial duties, and it was impossible
even for him to be everywhere and to see to everything.
T
290 KING'S COLLEGE
So things went on much as before till 1869, when
another effort was made, and a Committee reported on
the reforms which were necessary. The report was
agreed to, but it remained a dead letter till 1871, when
the determination of Trinity College to have a separate
staff of Lay Clerks forced the hands of the College, who
happened also, just at this time, to have elected a more
energetic set of officers. Things were now set on a better
footing, and other reforms followed in 1876-78. The
Organist was pensioned, the stipend of his successor,
appointed in June 1876, was raised ; the real power and
responsibility, which had hitherto been divided between
Organist, Precentor, and the Provost himself, was
definitely conferred on the Deans ; and, most important
of all, a Choir School was built. The Statutes of 1862
had ordered that the Choristers should be boarded and
lodged, as well as taught, and the conviction had gradu-
ally forced itself on the College, that the old system of
recruiting the Choir from Cambridge boys of the lower
classes produced a result which was not satisfactory
either musically or morally. Accordingly a School
House for a resident Master and sixteen boys was built,
and ready for occupation in the autumn of 1878. For-
tunately the finances of the College were still in a con-
dition which justified a spirited policy, and no experi-
ment has hitherto been more successful than this. The
boys are drawn from a higher class than formerly, and
come from all parts of England, and they receive a
classical education, at very small cost to their parents,
till their voices break, or till they are of an age to go to
a public school. Besides the musical gain to the
College, something is thus done towards restoring the
advantages of a liberal education to a class which the
NEW KING'S 291
Founder meant to benefit, but which is apt to be left
behind in an age of unrestricted competition.
Private liberality, a few years later, enabled the
College to establish some Choral Scholarships, and
volunteers from among the Undergraduates are also not
unfrequently introduced into the Choir. This addition
of an undergraduate element has at once strengthened
and refined the singing, while it helps to give the
Services a more devotional and less professional charac-
ter. The result of all these reforms has been that the
Musical Services of King's College Chapel are now
reckoned as among the best in the kingdom. Much of
this improvement is due to the ability and devotion of
the present Organist ; something, also, to the fact that
in 1888 about ^1400 was spent on the enlargement and
improvement of the organ, -500 of this amount being
the gift of the Fellows themselves.
One other department must be mentioned in which
the College showed considerable activity. The Duke
of Cleveland's Commission in 1873 had inquired into
the property of Colleges ; and it was understood that
this would be followed by a second Commission for a
further reform of their Statutes. At King's a Com-
mittee was appointed on February 23, 1872, to suggest
alterations which would be beneficial to the College.
During the next five years there was much discussion,
both in printed papers and at College meetings ; so
that, when the Universities Act of 1877 was passed
and the Commissioners appointed, the Society was
ready with a scheme, and had practically made up its
mind that Fellowships should be terminable and also
tenable after marriage, the two points which had been
stoutly resisted fifteen or twenty years earlier. A third
292 KING'S COLLEGE
point had also been partly conceded ; for in the spring
of 1876 conferences had been held with representatives
of Trinity College, St. John's College having declined
to join in the proceedings, in order to fix the amount
of the contribution to be made to the University and
the principle on which it should be levied ; and the two
Colleges had agreed that five per cent, of the distribut-
able income should be paid as a tax, and another five
per cent, applied in augmenting professorial stipends.
The Colleges did not, indeed, bid high enough to satisfy
the Parliamentary Commissioners ; nor did they hit
upon the plan of Professorial Fellowships, which was
afterwards adopted ; but these preliminary attempts at
legislation had at least made the Fellows of King's
familiar with the problems which the Statutes of 1882
endeavoured to solve.
Perhaps the most important result of the new code
to the College is the greatly increased number of resi-
dent Fellows. They had begun to grow when, as a
consequence of the Code of 1861, Pensioners were
slowly attracted to the College. But the possibility
of marrying and of making either College or University
work a life-long profession, carrying with it a Fellow-
ship for life, has greatly accelerated the tendency.
Those who are now the Seniors of the Society can
recall a time when not more than seven or eight Fellows
were in constant residence; and even of this number
some appeared to have little or nothing to do. Now,
there are at least twenty-five Fellows in residence, most
of them fully employed either in College or University
work, though perhaps not fully paid for their employ-
ment. Agricultural depression has sadly diminished
the College income ; and the increase in the tuition
NEW KING'S 293
fees, though supplemented out of the College purse,
does not provide stipends sufficient to console Tutors,
Deans, and Lecturers for the loss of their dividends.
Happily competent men have been forthcoming, willing
to devote their best energies to College work without
any regard to a stipend " of nicely calculated less or
more."
With this increase in the number of residents it is
only natural that the College should exercise greater
influence in the counsels of the University, and be well
represented on the Boards and Syndicates ; and this
has proved to be the case. The highly democratic
nature of the College constitution introduced in 1861
has probably helped to train successive generations of
Kingsmen in the peculiarly English faculty of getting
through business without any great waste of time or
temper ; of seeing and keeping to the point ; and of
expressing their opinions shortly and clearly. Yet it
may be doubted whether even now King's has regained
the place which it held in Elizabethan and even in
Stuart times, when the great Foundation, which now
eclipses its neighbours, had not yet reached its maturity,
and some rivals had only just entered the field.
At the present time the College list shews about 120
Undergraduates and more than thirty Bachelors or
Advanced Students in actual residence. With such a
body of young students and with the increased staff of
Fellows, it is hardly possible that the College should
relapse into what was sometimes its old condition, that
of a family party, comfortable, indeed, but inclined to
be sleepy and self-indulgent, and not wholly free from
family quarrels.
But the problems of the next century will probably
294 KING'S COLLEGE
not bear much resemblance to those with which our
predecessors were familiar. Or, if the foes are old, they
will wear new faces. It remains to be seen whether
the Kingsmen of the future will be equal to their
opportunities ; whether they will have the insight to
detect the dangers of their own days, and the faith and
courage necessary to surmount them.
APPENDICES
A. EXEMPTIONS FROM DEGREE
EXAMINATIONS
DEAN PEACOCK, in his well-known book on the Statutes of the
University published in 1841, maintains that the practice by which
Kingsmen then received the B.A. degree without examination,
rested on no authority ; but he does not explain how the abuse, for
such he evidently considers it to be, crept in.
The examination for the B.A. degree, in the fifteenth century, was
of the following character. Students, after completing their quad-
riennium and keeping two "responsions " and two " opponencies,"
became questionists, and were examined by the Proctors and others
in the Schools during the week before Lent. Those who were
approved were admitted "ad respondendum quaestioni"; and this
" question," taken out of the Prior Analytics of Aristotle, was pro-
posed in the Schools by the " Father " of each candidate. The
questionist then became an " incepting bachelor " or " determiner."
As such he was obliged " stare in quadragesima," and to determine
one or more questions in a strictly logical form. This process lasted
till the Thursday before Palm Sunday, when he became a com-
plete B.A.
No exemption seems to be contemplated in the original College
Statutes of 1443. In the 26th Statute stress is laid on the necessity
that a Scholar or Fellow should keep the full years required by the
University. He is then to be examined by his College authorities,
and if found fit by them, to become a B.A. (" statum baccalaureatus
assumat.") So far there is nothing inconsistent with the custom by
which the University accepted the College examination in lieu of its
own. But the 27th Statute, which makes special provision for
Scholars too poor to pay the expenses incidental to a B.A. degree,
allows 135. qd. for those who are about "respondere ad quaes-
tionem," and the same sum to those " determinaturis." And if this
Statute could be interpreted as using the technical terms merely in
296 KING'S COLLEGE
order to fix the dates at which the fee should be paid, there is no
such ambiguity about the 3ist Statute. This Statute orders that
those who are about to " determine " in Arts must rehearse within
the College, at least three times between October 9 and the first
Sunday in Lent, the subject of their approaching disputation in the
Schools (" disputabunt materiam quam proponunt disputare in
Quadragesima proxima tune sequente.")
It is hardly possible to resist the conclusion that the framers of
these Statutes, and especially of the sist, intended Kingsmen to take
their degrees in the usual way.
A little later Henry VI. obtained Bulls from the Pope exempting
his College from the jurisdiction of the Chancellor. After some
demur the University, in 1448, granted a "Concession" to the
College, admitting their separate jurisdiction. In this Concession,
however, it is expressly stated that in matters which affect educa-
tion ("propositum studii scholastic! "), viz., in hearing and giving
lectures, in disputations and the obligation "respondendi ad quaes-
tionem," &c., Kingsmen should obey the University Statutes like
other Scholars.
The final document, dealing with the question of jurisdiction, is
the composition made between the University and King's College
in 1456. In this it is provided that no member of King's, who
is about to take any degree, shall be obliged to take any
oath contrary to the Composition, " Sed quod aequa gaudeant
libertate et capacitate quoad gradus et officia suscipienda sicut
coeteri ejusdem Universitatis magistri et Scholares." In other
words, the existence of a separate jurisdiction was not to be made an
excuse for refusing a Kingsman his degree. But this document
throws no fresh light on the question how a Kingsman became
entitled to a B.A. degree.
Matthew Stokys, Esquire Bedell, who wrote an account of
University ceremonies in the sixteenth century, tells us that on Ash
Wednesday the Bedells collected the "determiners," and brought
them to St. Mary's Church before 8 A.M. " Last of all the Bedells
shall fetche the Determiners of the Kyng's Colledgeunto St. Maryes
Churche." That the members of King's College were fetched last,
immediately before the Vice- Chancellor, was evidently a compli-
ment ; but could they be called " determiners," merely because they
had reached the standing of those who were actually going to
" determine " on that day at St. Mary's ?
All this evidence points in the same direction. Yet, on the other
hand, there is the great improbability that the exemption would have
been granted at any date later than the reign of Henry VI. The
APPENDICES 297
University, although they disliked surrendering the Chancellor's
jurisdiction, were much gratified by the foundation of King's
College. This appears both from their language in the " Conces-
sion," and also from the precedence granted to Kingsmen. Their
feelings of gratitude and loyalty may have induced them, in view of
the ample provision made for education by the College, and in con-
sideration of the fact that the previous training at Eton was a
security that no one would be admitted to a King's Scholarship who
had not acquired the rudiments of learning, to dispense with any
further test in the case of Kingsmen ; but it is hardly conceivable
that they should grant such a dispensation after Henry's deposition
or death. Mr. J. W. Clark, whose judgment on s^uch a question is
superior to that of any living writer, is of opinion that from such
motives as these the University actually did allow the members of
the newly founded College to receive the B.A. degree, without
insisting on the usual requirements.
The later history of the College throws no light on this question ;
for the Latin Declamation, which Christopher Anstey in the
eighteenth century was called upon to deliver in the Schools, was
not one of the preliminaries for a B.A. degree, but an exercise for
the M.A. degree, which had fallen into disuse, and which Dr. Paris,
an energetic Vice-Chancellor, was attempting to enforce on
Bachelors.
Nor is much help to be got from the parallel case of New College ;
for here, too, the facts are uncertain. The common account is that
the Founder obtained a charter entitling his Fellows of New College
to an examination in his own College, instead of one in the Uni-
versity Schools, for their B.A. degree. The Statutes of New
College, like our own, seem to contemplate no such privilege. One
of them expressly forbids members of New College to supplicate for
graces to shorten the time of residence ; and Mr. Rashdall, the
historian of Oxford, thinks that this rule, which was really a
restriction, gradually became an exemption ; i.e., that, being forbidden
to apply for an indulgence which afterwards became universal, New
College men eventually got their degrees without any application at
all. This is, of course, only a conjecture ; what is certain is, that in
1607 the right of the College to the privilege was challenged by the
University, but confirmed by Archbishop Bancroft as Chancellor.
At any rate Mr. Rashdall's explanation will not account for the
exemption of Kingsmen.
If the records of our own University had preserved the names
and Colleges of those who in the fifteenth century performed the
exercises for a B.A. degree, we should at least have known whether
298 KING'S COLLEGE
the Kingsmen of the earliest days enjoyed any exemption, even if
the origin and justification of the exemption still remained obscure.
It seems to be a case in which all the evidence is on one side, and all
the probability on the other. For, besides the improbability of the
privilege being granted at any date later than Henry's reign, it is
difficult to believe that the same abuse crept in, owing to some
different cause, at both Universities : whereas, if William of Wykeham
had already secured the privilege for his Foundation, the example
set by Oxford might not unnaturally be followed by Cambridge.
B. THE SENIOR SCHOLAR'S BOOK
This is a MS. book, containing a collection of College customs,
some of which survived into the nineteenth century ; but the com-
parative antiquity of the different customs can only be ascertained
by internal evidence. In its present form the book seems to be a
compilation made in the eighteenth century ; but much of it no
doubt represents the practices of an earlier period.
There are elaborate directions for a Freshman. It was the duty
of the Junior Scholar to meet him on his arrival in Cambridge, to
see that he was provided with a cap and gown, and to take him to
the Provost with his Eton letter of introduction. The same scholar
had to place him in a particular spot in Hall called " Stain Coat
Hole," and under the organ loft in Chapel, and to see that he read
the " Admission Statutes"; as well as to provide all things neces-
sary for the ceremony of admission, including the presence of a
public notary.
While the bell tolled for his admission, the Freshman stood bare-
headed under the " Parlour " window or outside the Provost's Lodge,
till called in. Then he knelt down, read certain statutes and swore to
obey them. Thereupon the Provost admitted him, but did not, as
was the custom at the admission of a Fellow, give him the " osculum
pacis " ; after which the Freshman, rising from his knees, addressed
these words to the two' Senior Fellows present, " Oro vos (magis-
tros vel doctores A.B.) ut testes sitis hujus meae admissionis," ; and
turning to the notary he added, " et te require (C.) ut hanc meam
admissionem in protocollum redigas."
The Freshman was next placed in his chamber by the Provost
and Vice-Provost ; after which he was put under the charge of his
Chamber Fellow or Chum. The Chum now shared with the Senior
Scholar the further initiation of the Freshman, attending him in and
APPENDICES 299
out of his chamber for a week or ten days, " lest he ignorantly alone
should commit absurdities." During this period the Freshman
" caps the Court and Chapel, goes to Hall and Chapel at the first
ringing of the bell ; stands bare in the Hall at the upper end of the
Scholars' table; reads Greek Testament to one of the Senior
Scholars till taken off by the Steward or other Graduate Fellows
with these words, ' Parce tyroni ' ; and writes out the Admission
Statutes or Senior Scholar's Book during the week of his Freshman-
ship." When the right time comes, he calls on each of the chief
College officers with a letter containing the prayer " Oro me hoc
tyrocinio liberes " ; and then he at once becomes "bibler" and
reads lessons in Chapel, but he does not say Grace in Hall for a
month after his admission.
Even the older Scholars were obliged to visit the authorities with
verses before 8 A.M., if they wished to go out of College, except to
St. Mary's or to the Public Schools. Visits were also paid, on
stated days, for "Dors," i.e., leave to [lie in bed the next morning,
and for " Term out." Under this last head were included not only
the absences during vacations, but also periods of holiday at the
great Church Festivals ; e.g. , five days before and five after February 2,
and ten days at Whitsuntide.
The distinction between Fellows and Scholars was marked. The
latter " stand not to talk with a Fellow in sight of a Senior or M.A.
either in the Court, Cow Lane, or nave of the Chapel ; nor go into
the town in sight of any one of them except he give leave." This
last rule sounds like a reminiscence of " Shirking " at Eton.
There were, however, occasions when the Seniors unbent a little.
Such were " the four solemn beavers in the year, for the remem-
brance of which there is a false verse, viz. :
'Andreas, Thomas, Sanctorum, Nativitasque,'
on the eves whereof the Fellows and Scholars meet at six o'clock in
the Hall, when each having a 2d. of bread and beer they are to
drink charity to each other ; on which eves as also on the said feast
nights the Scholars keep Canonical hours in Hall and call them
Crambo nights, from an old custom of playing then at Crambo,"
There was also a Bachelors' F.east in Hall on the first Tripos
day ; when the Senior of the new Bachelors acted as steward and
sat with his hood on ; and both he and the next to him had the
right of asking two friends to dinner. On this occasion also those
Bachelors who were not Fellows, even if they were Choristers,
dined at the Bachelors' Mess. Yet the ordinary rules were not
altogether discarded; for "they withdraw from the hall fire, as
300
KING'S COLLEGE
indeed all Fellow Commoners, even M.A., while Grace is saying
before Meat, and leave the same to the person who comes up as
Vice-Provost."
Disputations were held in Chapel every week during term, except
at the time of audit. Those for Bachelor and Questionists were on
Wednesdays and Saturdays; those for M.A.s on Thursdays; notice
of questions to be discussed being in all cases posted on the Hall
screens three days before. During Lent there was no M.A. disputa-
tion, and only one in each week for B.A.s. Nothing is said as to
the disputations of the Scholars.
The book contains many details as to the procedure for taking
degrees within the College and in the University. For those who
were not on the Foundation the number of times on which they
must " oppose " and " respond " is specified, as well as the days and
hours during which they must sit in the Senate House for examina-
tion. It is added that they sit " uppermost of all Questionists, as
belonging to King's College ; but if any of the Choir sit, whether
Choristers or Singing Men, they are to take place of our Pensioners
and poor Scholars as being on the Foundation. " Yet it appears that
the precedence in presentation for degrees, which Kingsmen still
enjoy, was then only granted to Fellows. Others members of the
College were presented for admission according to the seniority of
their Fathers.
C.- PROVOSTS OF KING'S COLLEGE
1441 William Millington.*
1447 John Ched worth.
1452 Robert Wodelarke.
1479 Walter Field.
1499 John Dogget.
1501 John Argentine.
1507 Richard Hatton.
1509 Robert Hacomblene.
1528 Edward Fox.
1538 George Day.*
1548 Sir John Cheke.*
1553 Richard Atkinson.
1556 Robert Brassie.
1558 Philip Baker.*
1569 Roger Goad.
1610 Fogg Newton.
1612 William Smythe.
1615 Samuel Collins.*
1644 Benjamin Whichcote.*
1660 James Fleetwood.f
1675 Sir Thomas Page.
1681 John Coplestone.J
* These Provosts were ejected, or else resigned to escape ejection,
t Fleetwood vacated the Provostship on becoming Bishop of
Worcester.
J Coplestone was the last Provost nominated by the Crown.
APPENDICES
301
1689 Charles Roderick.
1712 John Adams.
1719 Andrew Snape.
1743 William George.
1756 John Sumner.
1772 William Cooke.
1797 Humphrey Sumner.
1814 George Thackeray.
1850 Richard Okes.
1889 Augustus Austen Leigh.
VISITORS OF KING'S COLLEGE
William of Alnwick.
1450 Marmaduke Lumley.
1452 John Chedworth.
1472 Thomas Rotherham.
1480 John Russell.
1495 William Smith.
1514 Thomas Wolsey.
1514 William Atwater.
1521 John Longland.
1547 Henry Holbeach.
1552 John Taylor.
1554 John White.
1557 Thomas Watson.
1560 Nicholas Bullingham.
1571 Thomas Cooper.
1584 William Wickham.
1595 William Chaderton.
1608 William Barlow.
1614 Richard Neill.
1617 George Montaigne.
1621 John Williams.
1642 Thomas Winniffe.
1660 Robert Sanderson.
1663 Benjamin Laney.
1667 William Fuller.
1675 Thomas Barlow.
1692 Thomas Tenison.
1695 James Gardiner.
1705 William Wake.
1716 Edmund Gibson.
1723 Richard Reynolds.
1744 John Thomas.
1761 John Green.
1779 Thomas Thurlow.
1787 George Pretyman Tomline.
1820 George Pelham.
1827 John Kaye.
1853 Jhn Jackson.
1869 Christopher Wordsworth.
1885 Edward King.
D. NOTE TO P. 157
It was not the first time that the appointment of Stephen Upman
to the Provostship had been contemplated. Sir Thomas Page died
in 1681, at the crisis of the Tory reaction which followed the rejec-
tion of the Exclusion Bill ; and it seems that Charles II. had then
chosen Upman as a representative of the policy at that moment
triumphant. But Upman did not possess the necessary Divinity
degree ; and the following letter, signed by Archbishop Sancroft and
Bishop Compton, shows how this difficulty was to be surmounted.
302 KING'S COLLEGE
" In pursuance of your Mav Declaration, of the 21" of July Last*
concerning Preferments in the Church and Universitys; We do
humbly Certify our Opinions, that M r Stephen Upman, Master of
Arts and Fellow of Eaton Colledge, is a Person for his Piety,
Learning, and Prudence, well deserveing your Ma^ a Letter of Dis-
pensation to your University of Cambridge, to admitt him to the
Degree of D or in Divinity, in order to qualify him for your Ma tys
Royall Favour in his Election to the Provostship of King's Colledge
now voyd by the death of S r Thomas Page.
W: CanU
H: London."
Aug. 13* 1681.
Upman however was not appointed Provost. Probably Charles
or his advisers came to the conclusion that it was safer to promote
a man of less extreme opinions.
INDEX
ABBOT, Archbishop, 115, 116
Abraham, Bishop, 256-257
Academical dress, 11, 81, 83, 246
Adams, Provost, 166-171
Albi, 25, 26
Aldrich, 36
Alien Priories, 2, 3
Alley, 85
Alnwick, William of, 2
Andrewes, Bishop, 92, 120
Anne, Queen, 161
Anstey, Chr., 211-214
Appeals (see Visitor), 60, 69-71, 73,
74, 77, 98, 99, 184-195, 233, 235-
237, 261, 262, 275, 280
Argentine, Provost, 35, 42
Armstead, 289
Ascham, A., 138, 139
Atkinson, Provost, 54
Audit Room, 6, 79, 288
Austin, Richard, 135
BAKER, Provost, 56, 60-62
Balston, 268, 272
Bard (Lord Bellamont), 125, 127
Barnes, 259
Barrett, 256
Barton, 67, 68
Barton, Elizabeth, 46
Bates, Joah, 217-218
Bath, 26, 213
Bathing-, 63
Batty, 164-166, 186, 187, 189
Bearblock, 236
Bennett, W. Sterndale, 247
Bentley, 145, 162, 172, 173-175
Best, 249
Biggin, 23
Bland, Henry, 175
Bland, Robert, 195
Blandford, Marquis of, 163
Blythe, 42
Bodley's Building, 18, 288
Boleyn, Ann, 30, 46
Bradshaw, 282-284
Brady, 176
Brandons, 86
Brassie, Provost, 53
Brick Building, 204
Bridge, 127, 243
Bridgewater, 59
Briggs, Sampson, 125
Broadchalke, 266
Brocklebank, 289
Bryan, John, 36, 37
Bryan, Thomas, 208
Buckden, 86, 103, 193
Buckinghamshire, 9, 14, 139
Buckhurst, Lord, 3, 67
Bull Hotel, 43, 243, 286
Buller, 253
Bullingham, Bishop, 60
Bulls, Papal, 13, 14
Bumpsted, 260
Burford, John, 180, 181, 192, 193, 210
Butt Close, 112, 243
Byam, 248
CAIUS, Doctor, 4, 39, 55
Calixtus, Pope, 31
Cambridgeshire, 9, 130
Campanile, 31, 32, 169
Canning, Stratford, 227-229
Catherine (Hall), 34, 287
Cecil (Lord Burghley), 60, 67, 68-71,
87
Cecil, Sir Robert, 76, 89
Cemetery, 13
Chapel (old), 4, 5, 24, 31
Chapel,
altar, 30, 54, 109, 203
bells, 81
clock-house, 31, 243
fabric, 17-25, 32
gates, 243
glass, 27-29, 32, 128-130, 261
INDEX
Chapel, lectern, 30, 203
organ, 31, 110, 111, 261, 291
pavement, 30, 203
picture, 203
rood-loft, 30, 110, 111
roof, 261
side chapels, 21, 25-27
stalls, 30, 109, 154
windows (See Glass)
Chaplains (or Conducts), 5, 12, 42,
60
Chaderton, Bishop, 74
Chancellor, 13, 14, 15, 198, 217
Chapman, 196
Charles I., 115, 116, 140
Charles II., 127, 142
Cheke, Sir John (Provost), 39, 40,
159
Chest Fund, 252
Chetwynd, 286, 287
Choristers, 5, 63, 65, 204, 289, 290
Christ Church, 38, 46, 50
Churton, 285
Clare Hall, 4, 18, 97, 112, 113,
243
Clement VII., 47
Clerks, Lay, 5, 10, 12, 13, 112, 289,
290
Clerks' Lodgings, 166, 202, 204
Cloister, 17, 169, 170, 171
Close, 19
Coffee-houses, 198, 199
Cole, 172, 173, 195, 205, 220
Collins, Antony, 173, 174
Collins, Baldwin, 97
Collins, Samuel, 77, 94, 97-106, 114,
130, 131
Combination Room (see Parlour), 6,
199
Cooke, Provost, 204-207, 222
Cooke, William, 200
Cooper, Bishop, 69
Copleston, Provost, 156, 167
Copyholds, 82, 233
Corrie, Dr., 224, 274
Cory's house, 251, 252, 285
Cosin, 116, 118
Cottenham, 88, 199
Coton, 80, 233
Cow Lane, 6
Cowell, 114, 115
Cox, 47, 48-50, 58, 143
Cranmer, 39, 48, 51
Craufurd, Sir G., 256
Croke, 37-39
Cromwell, Oliver, 127, 129, 130, 141,
142
Crouch, 131, 154
DALE, John, 181-187, 200
Dallam, 110, 111
Dampier, Henry, 232, 233
Dampier, J. L., 262
Dartmouth, Lord, 167, 168 (his son),
168
Davidson, 259, 288
Da vies, Scrope, 225
Da vies, Sneyd, 196, 221
Day, George, 39, 40, 85
Day, William, 85
Denton, 24
Dividends, 149, 197, 234, 293
Doughty, Gregory, 171
Dowsing, 128, 129
Draper, Sir W., 209-211
Drury, Ben., 225, 239
Drury, Harry, 232
Dunning, 93
Dupuis, H., 273
EDWARD IV., 21, 22
Edward VI., 40
Elizabeth, Queen, 49, 55-59, 80, 87-
89, 108, 235
Ely, 44, 45, 130
Ely, Reginald, 20, 22
Emmanuel College, 86, 134, 265
Erasmus, 36, 37, 46
Essex, Earl of, 29, 89, 108
Essex, James, 172, 203, 204
Essington, 264
Eton, 5, 8, 9, 14, 15, 17, 19, 50, 85,
109, 115, 157, 161, 174, 175, 178,
181, 201, 206, 213, 217, 235, 258,
261, 267,279
Evelyn, 132, 156
Eyre, 125
FAIRFORD, 29
Farebrother, 125
Feasts, 7, 10, 69, 153
Fellow- Commoners, 65, 66, 172, 204
Field, Provost, 22, 35
Fines, 73, 80, 148, 232, 234
Fisher, Bishop, 2, 34, 38, *46, 51
Fleetwood, Charles, 199
Fleetwood, James (Provost), 124, 153,
154, 156
Fleetwood, William, 161, 162, 199
Fleming, 59, 88
Fletcher, Giles, 70, 90, 107
Fletcher, Phineas, 107, 108
Flower, Barnard, 27
Football, 63
Foster, John, 220, 221
Friar's Gate, 201
INDEX
Frith, 43, 47, 51, 52
Fryer, 47
GARDEN, 7, 83, 201-203, 260
Gardiner, Thomas, 86
Gascony wine, 7, 235
Gearing-, 159
George I., 162, 171, 176, 177
Georg-elll., 239
George, Provost, 196, 197
Gibbons, O., 110
Gibbs's Building, 167-173, 202, 204
Glover, 52
Glynn, 218, 219, 223
Goad, Provost, 62, 63, 68-70, 73-84,
93, 111
Goad, Thomas, 102, 104, 114
Godolphin, Lord, 163
Goodall, 226, 268
Goodford, 268
Gouge, Thomas, 138
Gouge, William, 137, 138
Grafton, Duke of, 217, 221
Grantchester, 80, 233, 259
Gray, Thomas, 198, 213, 217, 219
Green, 276-278
Grey, Lady J., 40
Grey, Richard, 56
Griffin, 76, 78, 80, 83
Guest, 85
HACOMBLEN, Provost, 30, 216
Hacket, 98, 103, 104
Haddon, 40, 56, 58
Hall (the College), 6, 9, 10, 171, 182,
245, 252
Hampole, 25
Harding, 185, 189, 190
Hare, 163, 173-175, 221
Harington, 50, 72, 88-90
Hartcliffe, 157, 158
Harvey, 256
Hatch, Cliffe,237
Hatton, Provost, 35
Hawkesmore, 169, 170
Hawkins, 45
Hawtrey, E. C., 267-270
Hawtrey, John, 264
Hedgeland, 253, 261
Henry VI., 1-8, 13, 15, 21, 90, 172
Henry VI.'s " Will", 17, 18, 26, 30
Henry VII., 24, 25, 26, 27, 30
Henry VIII., 25, 27, 41, 47, 48, 111
Henry (sou of James I.), 89, 90
Hibbert, 256, 257
High Street, 18
Hinde, 75, 77, 78, 79, 83, 147
Hoadley, Bishop, 178, 179, 209
Hodgson, 231, 232, 273
Holland, Lord, 96, 101, 102, 105, 113
Howard, 125
Howgrave, 83, 84
Huddleston, 19
Hullier, 52
Hungerford, 172
Hunt, Richard, 135
Hunt, William, 237
Hyde, Lord Clarendon, 139, 140
INNOCENT XL, 155
Isaacson, 256
JAMES I,, 94, 96, 114-116
James II., 138, 157, 168
James, Charles, 275, 276
James, Thomas, 216
Jesus College, 144
Johnson, Dr., 114, 140
Johnson, W., 262, 263, 265, 267, 268,
282, 284
Jones, 200, 201
Jurisdiction, 14, 15, 16
KATHERINE (wife of Henry V.), It
24
KatherineParr (wife of Henry VIIL),
41
Kaye, Bishop, 248, 271, 273
Keate, 268
King, 26
Kitchen, 6, 246, 252
LAKYS, 70
Lancaster, 106, 107
Langton, 2, 4, 19
Latimer, 44, 45
Laud, 105, 111, 120, 2S6
Laundress Yard, 71, 202
Lawns, 201-203
Layton, 158, 161
Lectures, 9, 62, 63, 228, 231, 247,
256, 287
Leicester, Earl of, 59, 88, 89
Library, 7, 62
Lilesse, 70, 71
Lincoln College, 22
Lisle, 76-78, 83
Littleton, 164
Lloyd, 231
Lodge, Provost's, 57, 169, 171, 203,
204, 252
Lonsdale, 229, 230
Losse, 122-124
Luther, 43, 45, 48
Lytcott, 155
U
INDEX
MAUM, 91
Manchester, Earl of, 128, 129
Mansfield, Sir J., 232
Marlborough, Duke of, 163, 174
Mary I., 4 8, 53
Mary II., 158
Mary, Queen of Scots, 72, 88
Master, Richard, 46
Master, William, 57
Maturiu, 246, 247
Millington, Provost, 5, 14, 15
Milton (Farm and Rectory), 131, 137,
154, 194, 205
Milton, John, 112, 142
Molle, 132
More, 39, 51
Morell, 165, 166
Mountagu, 115-121, 134
Mulcaster, 91, 92
NEWBOROUGH, 161
New College, 110, 272
Newmarket, 158, 163, 200
Newton, Isaac, 146, 157, 164
Newton, Provost, 94, 96, 97
North, Roger, 198
Northumberland, Duke of, 40
ORES, Provost, 260, 269, 273-276,
278, 289
Oliver, Isaac, 94, 95
Orde, Thomas, 215, 216
Ossory, Lord, 156
Oughtred, 142, 145-146
PADDON, 205
Page, Sir T. (Provost), 156
Palmer (Lord Castlemaiue), 155, 156
Parlour (see Combination Room), 6,
71, 83, 152
Parr, 193
Patteson, 227, 271
Pearson, 142-145
Pensionary, 166
Pensioners, 66, 284, 285
Peterhouse, 172, 181, 259
Pitt, Wm., 215, 216, 218, 238
Plague, 19, 77
Plays, 58, 84
Pote, 249, 250
Pratt (Lord Camden), 196, 214, 215
Presbyterians, 128, 133, 138
Prescot, 232
Preston, 58
Price, 153
Puritans, 84, 85, 89, 116, 117, 137,
138, 141, 144, 149
QUEEN'S College, 15
RAMSEY, Abbey, 27
Randall, 217
Raven, 79
Raven, Wm., 125
Rector (of King's College), 3, 5
Rennell, George, 241, 242, 248, 249
Rennell, Thomas, Sen., 238
Rennell, Thomas, Jun., 227, 230, 231
Reynolds, 157
Reynolds, Bishop, 184-186, 187-194
Richard III., 23, 24
Rightwise, 58, 91
Roderick, Provost, 158, 159, 160-164
Roe, 96, 100, 101
Rotherham, 21-23
Ruislip, 148
SACRIST, 152, 153
Sampford Courtenay, 3, 67, 80
Saunders, 75
Saunders, Laurence, 52
Scott, G. G., 20, 24, 30
Scott, Sir G. G., 286
Scott's Building, 286
Servitors, 152
Sheaf, 78, 79
Simeon, 219, 222-224, 242, 244, 254,
255, 257, 263
Smythe, Provost, 94, 96
Snape, Provost, 171, 178-195
Stable, 7, 76, 243
Stacey, 288
Stanhope, 206
Stanhope, Dean, 162, 221
Staples, 177
Statutes, 6, 7, 11-13, 16, 150, 151,
183-185, 190, 192, 250, 278-280,
291, 292
St. Bertraud de Comminges, 30, 111
St. John's College, 39, 41, 59, 266,
292
St. John Zachary, 18, 19, 27
St. Edward's, 18
Sturgis, 187, 189, 190, 191
Svaine, 125, 126
Sumner, Archbishop, 226, 227
Sumner, Humphrey (Provost), 224-
226, 235, 238, 269
Sumner, John (Provost), 201, 209,
210
Sumptner, 47
THACKERAY, Elias, 239, 244, 245
Thackeray, George (Provost), 239-
241, 260, 273
Thackeray, Martin, 241-243
INDEX
Thackeray, Thomas, 196, 208, 209,
216
Thefdale, 19
Thicknesse, 217
Thring, 267, 270, 272
Toft Monks, 169
Tomkins, John, 110
Tomkyns, John, 262
Tomline, Bishop, 233
Townshend, Lord, 170, 176, 184
Transubstantiatiou, 51, 120, 156
Treasury, 6, 207
Trinity College, 53, 56, 59, 130, 144,
162, 289, 290, 292
Trinity Hall, 4, 18, 56, 114, 131, 200
Troy, 259
Trivium, 9, 38, 92
Tuckney, 134-136
UDALL, 58
Upman, 157
VINCENT, 95, 96
Vintner, 104
Visitor and Visitations (see Appeals),
60, 61, 71, 74-83, 98, 99, 100-105,
151, 153, 270, 271, 273
WADDINGTON, 178
Wainflete, 7
Walkern, 187
Waller, 139-142
Walpole, Horace, 88, 89, 198, 203,
219, 220
Walpole, Robert, 161, 170, 174-177,
180, 196
Warhara, 38, 46
Warwick, Earl of, 1, 20
Wase, 132
Weaver, 109
Weedon Pinckney, 122
Weldon, 22, 25
West, 44, 47
Westcott, 287
Whichcote, 129, 131, 133, 134-137,
154, 159, 223
White Horse Inn, 43, 243
Wickham, Bishop, 71-73
Wilberforce, Bishop, 227, 270, 271
Wilder, 245
William III., 158, 168
Williams, Bishop, 98, 100-105, 151
Williams, George, 257
Williams, Rowland, 255, 262-267
272
Wilkins's Building, 251-253, 257
Wilkinson, 256
Willymott, 165, 187-195
Winterton, 100-106, 114
Witt, 284
Wodelarke, Provost, 20, 34
Wolsey, 38, 46, 47
Woodyere, 75, 76, 78, 80, 83
Woolward, 60
Woolrich, 22
Wordsworth, 23
Wotton, Sir Henry, 99, 143
Wren, Sir Christopher, 169
Wycliff, 43
YORK, 19. 32, 110, 126
Young, 221
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